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SOLVING THE COUNTRY
CHURCH PROBLEM
By
GARLAND A. BRICKER, B.Ped., M.A.,
Assistant Professor of Agricultural Education, Ohio State
University, and Managing Editor of " The Rural
Educator," Columbus, Ohio.
In Co-operation with
Fourteen Collaborators
t
(Emcmiraii :
JENNINGS AND GRAHAM
EATON AND MAINS
COPYRIGHT. 1913, BY
JENNINGS AND GRAHAM
HI S5".
TO THOSE WHO LOVE THE LORD
BY SERVICE
IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
THIS BOOK IS CONSIDERATELY
DEDICATED.
The Ghurch in the Wildwood.
W. S. P.
Dr. Win. 5. Pitts.
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1. There's a church in the val-ley by the wild - wood, No love - li - er
2. How sweet on a clear, Sab-bath morn - ing To list to the
3. There, close by the church in the val - ley, Lie9 one that I
4. There, close by the side of that loved one, 'Neath the tree where the
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place in the dale; No spot is so dear to my child-hood As the
clear ring -ing bell; Its tones so. sweet -ly are call - ing, Oh,
loved so well; She sleeps, sweetly sleeps 'ueath the wil - low; Dis-
wild flow-ers bloom, When the fare- well hymn shall be chant- ed, 1 shall
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N Fine. v^auo
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lit-tle brown church in the vale,
come to the church in the vale,
turb not her rest in the vale,
rest by her side in the tomb.
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Oh, come, come, come, come, come, come,
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church by the wild - wood, Oh, come to the church in the dale;
come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come:
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Analytical Table of Contents
PAGE
Preface 13
CHAPTER I
Introduction: The Problem in Perspective 19
Interdependence of Rural Industrial Evolution and
Social Development 19
The Institutions Concerned in Rural Industrial Evo-
lution 20
The Institutions Concerned in Rural Social Devel-
opment 20
The Insufficiency of the Economic Aim as a Life Motive
Force 22
The Church as a Social Institution 23
The Problems of Leadership and Discipleship 25
The Rural Problem Is Integral 26
CHAPTER II
The Economic Relations of the Farmer and His Church 2 7
1. The Church as an Index to Rural Economic Welfare
and Social Life 28
The Four Types of the Historic Country Church. 28
The Coming Type of Country Church 30
2. Church Improvement Dependent upon Labor In-
come 32
The Cause of the Retarded Country Church . . 33
An Agricultural Ministry? 37
3. The Lord's Share of the Farmer's Profits 39
The Budget System of Giving 41
4. The Traditional Christian Character and the Farmer. 41
The Traditional Virtues 42
The Marginal Rural People Are Representative. 46
CHAPTER III
The Limitations, the Opportunities, and the Possibil-
ities of the Country Church 48
1. The Limitations of the Country Church 48
Antiquated Buildings and Equipment 51
7
CONTENTS
PAGE
Inadequate Financial Support 52
Inefficient Leadership . . 53
Weakness of the College and the Seminary .... 53
The Need of Readjusting Ecclesiastical Admin-
istration 55
Lack of Vision 56
Summary of Limitations . 57
2. The Opportunity of the Country Church 58
Co-operation of Rural School and Country
Church 58
Championing Rural Life 60
Church Mediatorship in Securing Co-operation. 60
Readjustment 64
Summary of Opportunities 65
3. The Possibilities of the Country Church 65
The Rise of New Conditions in Country Life. . . 66
The Dream and Then the Dawn . 67
The Message 68
The Message in Action 70
CHAPTER IV
The Centralization of Country Churches 73
1. Conditions 73
2. The Effects 75
One Example of an Over-Churched Field 76
The Benefit of Church Consolidation 78
3. Difficulties in the Way of Church Centralization. . . 79
4. What Shall We Do about It? 81
1. Union under a Denomination 84
2. Union under No Denomination 85
3. Federation of Denominations 86
4. Interdenominational Church Trades 87
The New Organizations Evil 87
Caution 88
References. . ." 89
CHAPTER V
Efficiency and Leadership 91
1. The Nature of Leadership 91
2. Rural Leadership 93
3. A Country Church Commission and Its Work 95
4. Pastoral Leadership 97
5. The Greatest Need — Co-operation 101
6. Three Great Rural Leaders 102
7. The Call of the Rural Church 106
8
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI PAGE
The Education of Ministers for Service in Rural
Churches '. 108
Introduction 108
The Scholastic Training of the Rural Minister in
Outline 109
1. A Standard Philosophy of Rural Improvement Ill
Breadth of Vision and Training Needed 114
2. Catholicity of Acquaintance with the Rural Move-
ment 117
3. Rural-Mindedness.. 119
Shall Rural Ministers Receive Agricultural Col-
lege Training? 121
4. An Invincible Purpose and Enthusiasm for Rural
Spiritualization 123
Suggestions on the Solutions of the Educational
Problem 125
CHAPTER VII
The Principles of Apperception and Association in-
Rural Religious Teaching 128
1. The Principle of Apperception 128
The Application of the Principle 129
Factors Influencing Teaching by Apperception. 131
2. The Principle of Association 133
The Principle of Association in Operation.: ... 135
A Suggestive Sermon Outline 13S
CHAPTER VIII
The Agricultural College and the Country Church. . 140
1. Primitive Condition 140
2. Agencies of Transformation 142
Drift Westward 144
Agricultural Decline 145
Agricultural Colleges 146
New Conception of the Agricultural College. . . 149
3. The Educated Ministry 150
4. Immediate Sendee of the College to the Church. . . . 155
CHAPTER IX
An Adequate Salary for the Rural Pastor 159
The Problem Stated 159
A Comparison of Salaries and Service 160
The Work of a Country7 Church Commission 161
9
CONTENTS
PAGE
The Right to Expect a Living Wage 163
What Constitutes a Living Wage? 164
The Rights of Pastor and of People 167
The Principle of Subsidizing Weak Rural Churches. ... 168
Money and Ministry • 169
Pay for Trained Leadership 1 70
CHAPTER X
The Spiritual Evangelization of the Rural Com-
munity Through Its Church 176
1. The Supreme Aim 176
2. The Sort of Leaders Needed 177
3. Hindrances to Spiritual Evangelization 179
(a) The Progressive Communitv 180
(b) The Stagnant Church 182
4. Helps to Constructive Evangelization 182
(a) The Community Survey 183
(b) Community Brotherhood 184
(c) The Church's Responsibility for Community
Intelligence 189
5. The Test 190
CHAPTER XI
The Rural Church as a Factor in the Social Life of
the Country Community 192
The Life with Nature Is the Normal Life 192
Are We Becoming a Nation of Cities? 193
Serving Rural America Is a Great Service 194
The Rural Community Needs the Christian Church. . . 194
Phases of Social Activity for the Rural Church 199
A Typical Example of the Status of the Church in Rural
Communities 202
The Church Should Encourage and Minister to All
Good Community Activities 204
A Few Suggestions from Practical Experience 205
A Circulating Library 207
The Mission of the Rural Church 208
CHAPTER XII
r><>\V and Men's Clubs in the Country Church 209
1. The Problem '. ... 209
The Loneliness of the Open Countrv 212
2. The Boys' Club '. 213
The Question of Leadership 214
Opportunities Open to Boy-Club Activities. ... 215
The Highest Aim of Boys' Club Work 218
10
CONTENTS
PAGE
3. The Men's Club. . 219
The Various Fields of Service for Men's Clubs. 220
The Final Result 221
The Ultimate Aim 222
CHAPTER XIII
Recreation and the Rural Church 223
The Recreational Responsibility of the Rural Church. 223
An Example 225
The Forms of Recreation and Amusement 226
The Monotony of Winter on the Farm 229
CHAPTER XIV
The Work of Women's Organizations in the Rural
Church 232
The Ladies' Aid Society a Type 232
The Women's Organization a Community Enterprise . . 235
The Enlargement of the Field of Service 237
The Rural Problem a Unit 239
A Typical Ladies' Aid Society 239
CHAPTER XV
Rural Sunday School Efficiency 244
1 . Obstacles to the Progress of the Rural Sunday School. 245
2. Educational Efficiency 247
Lesson Systems 249
Organization 250
Architecture and Equipment 251
3. Social Efficiency 255
Larger Friendliness 257
Recreative Activities 259
Community Improvements 260
Reform Movements 260
Social Problems 261
CHAPTER XVI
The Work of the Country Young Men's Christian As-
sociation in Building Rural Manhood 263
1. The Field of the Country Young Men's Christian
Association 264
2. The Organization and Methods of Work 265
3. Principles in Rural Work 268
11
CONTENTS
PAGE
4. The Group Method of Organization and Activities. 270
Social Activities 271
Recreational and Athletic Activities 272
Educational Activities 273
Religious Work 276
CHAPTER XVII
The Young Women's Christian Association as a Builder
of Rural Womanhood 279
1. The Organization of the Country Young Women's
Christian Association 279
2. Methods of Carrving on the Work 280
APPENDIX
A. A Select Bibliography on the Country Church. . 287
B. Historical and Statistical Report of the Law-
rence Circuit for 1913 289
12
PREFACE
That a rural Church problem exists is usually
granted without debate, and it is upon this assump-
tion that the collaborators of this volume have pro-
ceeded in their work. The question naturally arises,
How shall this problem be solved? and that has been
the guiding consideration in the preparation of this
book.
The solution of so great a problem is not a one-
man's job. There is at present great need of a first-
class symposium on the subject of solving the country
Church problem. Not a symposium of theories
merely, but a forum for the best thought of practical
rural workers that shall incorporate experience, wis-
dom, knowledge, and timely suggestions born of
mature reflection. That some of the fundamental
essentials necessary to the solution of the country
Church problem have already been worked out, and
therefore now exist, is the contention of the writer.
The writing and collecting of the contributions com-
posing this book represent a plan to bring out from
under the bushel a few lights to guide the pioneer
rural leader and Church worker on his pathway to a
realization of the really efficient country Church.
The men and women who have collaborated in
this work were chosen because of their special fitness
13
PREFACE
to write on the special subjects assigned to them.
This fitness has, in every case, been born of experi-
ence. There has been no effort to work out some
abstract theory, nor to establish one. An attempt
has been made to arrange the contributions in that
order which is the most suggestive for considering the
problem under discussion.
The question may be raised why a professor of
agricultural education should so far interest himself
in the rural Church problem as to take the initiative
in the compilation of a symposium, which may be a
step in its possible solution. To such an inquiry the
editor of this volume gives the following cogent
answer :
First. No leader in a profession can be truly in-
terested in its members without also being interested
in their environments. The teachers of agriculture,
who must in no small degree spend their lives in
country communities, will naturally become rural
social leaders; and to make this leadership most
effective for good, it should be exercised through, or
in connection with, the moral atmosphere of a live
and prosperous Church.
Second. No man lives to himself alone; neither
should the narrow walls of one's own immediate pur-
suits limit the soul's vision into the beauties of an-
other's vineyard. Each angle at which a social prob-
lem is viewed gives a new insight and the possibility
of- greater achievement in service.
Third. In investigating rural conditions in Ohio
and elsewhere in connection with his studies and
14
PREFACE
travels during the past three years, the writer lias
found several rural ministers who were attaining
varying degrees of success along different lines of
rural Church work. This observation prompted him
to the endeavor of making a collection of these various
experiences and achievements, that others who are
interested in the country Church might be helped
by them.
Fourth. The interrelation of the three great fun-
damental institutions of the rural community — the
home, the school, and the Church — is such that the
assistance rendered to one of them will have a desir-
able reflex influence upon the others. One of the
surest ways to secure a redirection of the rural school
is to have a redirected country Church.
Columbus, Ohio, G. A. B.
September 1, 19 to.
15
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH
PROBLEM
CHAPTER I
Introduction : The Problem in
Perspective
By Garland A. Bricker, B. Ped., M. A.,
Assistant Professor of Agricultural Education, Ohio State Uni-
versity, and Managing Editor of The Rural Educator,
Columbus, Ohio.
Interdependence of Rural Industrial Evolution and Social
Development
The solution of the rural problem depends upon
development along two distinct, co-ordinate, and
mutually dependent lines : one has
reference to industrial evolution
and the other to social transforma-
tion. In any society, however
primitive, the industrial life must
be economically profitable before a
social structure, however simple,
can be maintained. The social fab-
ric is limited by industrial pros-
perity. On the other hand, a low
social life will not inspire the high-
est industrial efficiency. While a
social life can not endure at high-tide with an indus-
trial ebb, neither can great industrial evolution be
realized without a corresponding flow of the social
life of a people to inspire it.
19
PROFESSOR BRICKER
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
The Institutions Concerned in Rural Industrial Evolution
The industrial evolution in the open country con-
cerns itself with the perfecting of a system of agri-
culture in which labor, business, and science play the
leading parts. The institutions that have been
created for accomplishing this task, and that may
justly be held responsible for it, are the agricultural
colleges, the experiment stations, the departments of
agriculture, the agricultural high schools, the agri-
cultural courses of the public schools, both elementary
and high, the various agricultural associations, organ-
izations, and clubs, the farmers' institutes, and the
grange and similar bodies. The ultimate aim of the
activity of all these is a more intensive and profitable
agriculture — the production of more and better raw
materials for food, clothing, shelter, and aesthetic en-
joyment of man, from the smallest area of land
through the least expenditure of money, effort, and
deterioration of the soil. It is a purely economic aim,
and doubtless owes its tremendous momentum to the
selfish disposition in the individual man, combined
with the growing need of the race.
The Institutions Concerned in Rural Social Development
The social transformation has to do with the re-
habilitation and the readjustment to modern rural
conditions of those institutions through which rural
social life finds its expression, or else with the creation
of new organizations that shall serve and satisfy the
social instinct of country people. The institutions
that are of a right burdened with this responsibility
20
A SHELL
This church building is located in the midst of a very profit-
able agricultural region. The farmers are careful to keep it in
repair, clean it regularly, and speak of it as "our church." Well,
it must be ! For the past twelve years not a single religious serv-
ice has been held in it. The last service was a township Sunday
school convention, in 1900. The farmers of the community
seem to feel that the presence of this church building is necessary,
and give of their substance to keep it in repair. No one there
would advocate the removal of this skeleton of a defunct social
organization. The "labor income" is evidently adequate to
sustain a flourishing Church organization, but the traditional
Christian virtues seem to be lacking; the predominating aim of
life among the people here is an economic one. Socially speak-
ing, can the people of this community be rated as good farmers?
21
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
arc the rural home, the rural school, the country
Church, and such other organizations as have for
their object the betterment of rural life. The com-
pelling force back of all these institutions is the social
instinct of the individual — an inherent character of
the race. The direction in which this instinct ex-
presses itself will determine the nature of the institu-
tion, whether cohabitive, religious, educational, or
recreative.
The Insufficiency of the Economic Aim as a Life Motive Force
The economic aim of the agriculturist is not the
ultimate aim of life, and to make it so, either in fact
or supposition, will only insure the final failure of the
great movement for which it is responsible. Social
workers, therefore, who regard the economic aim only
as a means for contributing to the permanent uplift
and development cf humanity, may well become
alarmed with reference to the prominence which the
economical ideal is assuming in the life and ideals of
country people. We do not wish to be misunderstood
in this view of the matter under discussion. It is not
the purpose to decry wealth as a means for the accom-
plishment of better things for humanity or for the
realization of better conditions of life on the farm:
our voice is raised against the disposition of making
it the end of effort. A money-grasping rural popula-
tion can never realize its highest development. A
scientific agriculture, to be permanent, must be ac-
companied by a corresponding development of the
fundamental rural institutions — the rural home, the
22
THE PROBLEM IN PERSPECTIVE
rural school, and the country Church. Besides these,
but not independent of them, must be organizations
through which play, amusement, social intercourse,
and other social instincts of the people may find
expression. These institutions are the core of country
life, and unless scientific agriculture contributes to
the evolution and maintenance of these, it can never
be supported by an intelligent population, which is
absolutely necessary to its final success as a con-
servator of the human race. An institutional awaken-
ing of rural communities can not, therefore, be ig-
nored; and rural education, inasmuch as it aims to
realize this awakening, is, from the larger point of
view, even more essential than education in agri-
culture.
The Church as a Social Institution
We now have a clear perspective as to the relative
importance of the economic and the social forces in-
volved in rural life development. We frankly ac-
knowledge that social life and institutions in the open
country are in a state of decadence. We may well
now consider the causes that have had the deteriorat-
ing effect, and especially the means and methods of
rehabilitation, together with the experiences and con-
victions of active rural workers who have met with a
reasonable degree of success.
We must, at the outset, recognize that the social
institutions are the machines through which social
energy works, and that the social leaders are the
engineers. There is abundant social energy in every
rural community; the great trouble is. it is allowed to
23
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
go to waste or is misdirected. In other words, this
rural social energy does not flow through those tried
and fundamental institutions in which it is most de-
sirable that it should flow. The energy is there, but
the machines are clogged, or they leak — perhaps both.
Social institutions must be the organizations of the
people whom they serve. Rural institutions must be
permeated with the rural idea of things, and adapted
to work in harmony with the mechanism of the rural
system, its mode of life, its customs, and its ideals.
They must fit into the rural economy.
The country Church is one of these institutions.
The divine conception of the Church is perfect; but
the human interpretation of that conception and
man's organism through which to work out that con-
ception is necessarily fallible. Yesterday man in-
vented and constructed a human mechanism adapted
to the social life of his day, through which the eternal
principles of God might act. Since yesterday man's
social life has changed, and his social mechanism is
no longer adequate to the needs of to-day; his genius
must make a new adaptation of his social machine to
meet the requirements of this generation. To-morrow
the social structure will have experienced further
change, and again the human organization will need
to be reconstructed. Seventeenth century institutions
and equipments are not adequate to the needs of a
twentieth century civilization.
As a social institution, the rural Church has its
definite sphere of activity. It can not hope to be-
come, and indeed should not become the center of
24
THE PROBLEM IN PERSPECTIVE
every community activity. The center of the purely
intellectual activities of the community should be the
rural school. The rural home must awaken to the
necessity of opening its doors to take under a private
roof the purely social affairs of the young life in the
community. Here will be supplied the much-needed
paternal protection and maternal restraint too often
lacking in public gatherings and in community build-
ings, which belong to everybody and are controlled
by nobody. To the Church are surrendered all mat-
ters pertaining to the moral, the religious, and the
spiritual life of the community and its individuals.
The country Church, therefore, becomes a community
center for those social activities that involve any of
these phases of life.
The Problems of Leadership and Discipleship
It must be confessed that there are two more
important factors involved in the solution of the rural
problem, and they are also included in the country
Church problem. The first factor is that of leader-
ship, and the second is that of discipleship. Every-
where in rural communities there is a woeful lack of
leaders, which is only equaled by the inability and
unwillingness of country people to be led. An awe-
stricken horse will die in preference to being led from
a burning barn by his master; and to-day there are
thousands of rural communities in America that are
socially dead, because their people will not follow a
leader.
25
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
The Rural Problem is Integral
It must not be overlooked that the rural problem
is an integral one. It can not be solved by the re-
habilitation of any one of its fundamental institu-
tions. The rural institutions are so interrelated that
the decadence of one will have a depressing effect
upon the others; and the reviving of one will tend to
enliven the remainder. On the other hand, the whole
social structure can not be set aright through the
awakening and redirecting of only one of its institu-
tions. While undertaking to solve the country Church
problem, the rural school and the rural home need
serious attention and must not be neglected. The
rural problem needs to be attacked as a whole.
26
CHAPTER II
The Economic Relations of the Farmer
and His Church
By Warren H. Wilson, Ph. D.,
Superintendent, Department of Church and Country Life, Presby-
terian Church in the United States of America, New York.
In a general way, the farmer and his Church are
related through the working of four principles. First
of all, the Church is a typical ex-
pression of the farmer's economic
welfare. Second, the improvement
of the Church, as of any social in-
stitution, is made only from the
profit of farming. It can not be ex-
pected of any community that social
institutions be improved by the use
cf borrowed money. Third, the
farmer should give of his prosperity,
dr. wilson measured in part by his profit, to
the support of the Church. Fourth, the ethical dis-
cipline which is essential to productive and profitable
farming is the traditional, ethical code of the Christian
Church.
27
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
1. The Church as an Index to Rural Economic Welfare and
Social Life
The Church is the expression of economic welfare
in the country. It may be called a register of the well-
being of the farmer. In America the Church is a
free institution. Not only is it free of governmental
control, but all Churches are free of power to compel
by tradition. The people in America are not autoch-
thonous, but have come to the soil from afar. They
have gone through the enfranchising experience of
migration. Criticism and discussion have character-
ized their movement from one land to another, across
the seas and usually from State to State. Upon such
a population the control of tradition is no longer
possible. The establishment of a Church among
them, granting one factor, is possible only with their
free consent. That one factor is universal education,
which, with some modification, is general throughout
the United States.
This kind of a Church, riding upon the waters of
rural opinion and assent, is a quick and sensitive
register of the welfare of the people. It reflects in
its establishment their abundance or their want. It
registers in its form of organization the type of their
mind and the degree to which organization has pro-
ceeded in their social life; and, more than all, it con-
forms to the economic type to which the farmer
belongs.
The Four Types of the Historic Country Church. —
This conformity of the country Church to the eco-
nomic type is the most startling evidence of the play
28
ECONOMIC RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH
of economic forces upon it. Indeed, the present dis-
turbance of country Churches is due, primarily, to
the transition going on in the country between one
type and another. Broadly speaking, there have been
four types of farmer in America, and each of these
types, produced by the economic struggle in the
country, has built his own Church, and stamped upon
it his own typical character.
The pioneer made his Church individualistic, emo-
tional, like himself. Because the loneliness of the
mountain and the prairie had gone into his soul, he
stated it in his doctrine of personal salvation and
organized it in his methods of periodical revival; and
he built it into his buildings, which centered around
a pulpit.
The household farmer, the genial, economic type
which we all know, whose life was characterized by
the perfection of the economic group in the farm
household, had his Church like unto himself. The
country Church in his day was a cluster of families,
and it had no general interests, typically speaking.
It was a perfect institution in that it rounded out —
in leisurely thinking, formal and systematic theological
preaching, and genial, wholesome living — the best
ideals of the Christian world at that time. But it
must be remembered that the worshiper in the pioneer
church would have thought the church of the house-
hold farmer the temple of worldliness. The house-
hold farmer would have been restless and unfed in
the violent, emotional atmosphere of the pioneer
church.
29
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
The third economic type in American country life
is the speculative and exploiting farmer. He was
foreshadowed in the household farmer, who tilled the
soil for first values only. There is little to choose
between this and exploitation. The speculative period
began when the first values of the land were exhausted,
and when the Eastern farmer could not compete with
the Western tiller of virgin soil. About 1890, after
■ years of westward migration, when the free lands of
the West were gone, a price was put upon every
acre, broadly speaking, between the Atlantic Ocean
and the Missouri River.
The period of speculative farming has produced
three sub-types of farmers, every one of them influ-
ential in the religious life of the country. They are
the farm tenant, the absentee landlord, and the re-
tired farmer. Ask the minister in the Middle West
who these people are, and he will tell you of his pro-
foundest anxiety. Their influence upon the Church
is greater than that of theologians, of seminaries, and
of evangelists. Under the speculative holding of land,
40 per cent, 50 per cent, or 60 per cent of the farmers
around the country church have become renters. In
the villages and towns, the retired farmer is usually
an unprogressive, ungenerous, and disappointed mem-
ber of the Church, while the absentee landlord occu-
pies the central place in influence; but, so far, lias
evaded all proper demands of the Church in the
country.
The Coming Type of Country Church. — The fourth
economic type of countryman is the scientific and or-
30
ECONOMIC RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH
ganized farmer. One can say but little of his influ-
ence, because it has not yet become mature. It is
easy to see that he. too will build a church like unto
himself. It will have many of the characteristics of the
"Institutional Church." It will be a social and com-
munity center. It will have an intelligent interest in
scientific farming. Its minister will preach in terms
of the farm, and its organization will be co-operative,
in obedience to the new spirit, and its outlook will be
world-wide. Such Churches are already well organ-
ized and matured in certain defined regions, in
which husbandry is also mature, scientific, and or-
ganized.
These statements illustrate in part the close rela-
tion between the Church in a free commonwealth and
the economic life of the people. It is so intimate that
the Church may be called the thermometer of the
welfare of country people. This statement may be
expanded in numerous ways, for the Church reflects
very promptly the social character of the people, being
democratic or aristocratic, conforming to the tribe
and feud spirit, or obeying the community sense as it
grows; responsive also to the world-consciousness
which some communities have acquired.
Especially is the Church the reflector of actual
economic prosperity, in contrast to financial pros-
perity, in the country. The definition of prosperity
by L. H. Bailey in his book, "The Country Life
Movement," will be written in the country churches.
He says: "My reader may wish to know what con-
stitutes a good farmer. I think that the requirements
31
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
of a good farmer are at least four: The ability to
make a full and comfortable living from the land; to
rear a family carefully and well; to be of good service
to the community; to leave the farm more productive
than it was when he took it." Such prosperity means
a permanent population. It means the continuance
of the same people in the community; satisfied, con-
tented, and industrious. In this satisfaction of a per-
manent population, the Church in the country is an
essential factor; and a contented, continuing popula-
tion expresses its mind and organizes its permanency
in the country Church.
2. Church Improvement Dependent upon Labor Income
The second economic relation between the Church
and the farmer is one which characterizes all social
institutions in the country. These institutions are
supported not out of borrowed money, but out of
the profits, or "labor income," of the farmer. We
are hearing a great deal in these days about the high
price of farm land. It is cited as an illustration of the
farmer's prosperity. These high prices are not due in
any way to the farmer's labor or skill. They come of
themselves, unsought, and they may depart again in
spite of all the farmer can do. Their value to the
farmer, however, is in the increase of his capital.
Against this capital he can borrow for the improve-
ment of his land. They enlarge his working credit.
On this credit he can purchase farm machinery, better
stock, and fertilizer; and with it he can pay for labor,
to the improvement of his land and the increase of
32
ECONOMIC RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH
his productive property. But he can not, because his
credit is better, pay for better social institutions.
The improvement of social institutions comes
solely from the profit of the farm. This is written
into all the Old Testament laws, which ordered that
the farmer should pay to the support of religious in-
stitutions, "as the Lord had prospered him." No
doubt a country community could be expected to
build a church at the beginning on borrowed money,
because such a church would be a necessity of life.
Likewise a schoolhouse might be built by mortgaging
farm land, but it would be a bare institution, suited
to the service of mere necessities. Our present-day
problem is the improvement of the Church and of the
school. The increase of ministers' salaries, the re-
building of country churches, the consolidation of
country schools — all these improvements wait for the
increase of the farmer's "labor income," by which I
mean the net profit he has in return for his work.
The Cause of the Retarded Country Church. — The
meaning of this is that the Church in the country is,
above all other institutions, retarded in its develop-
ment until the farmer shall prosper. It can not go
forward, the minister's salary can not be adapted to
the increased expensiveness of living, the Church can
not be organized as an effective social center, housed
in a new and elaborate structure, until the farmer has
an income adequate to this increased social expendi-
ture. The rural moralist will net rightly urge the
spending of borrowed money for the improvement of
social machinery.
3 33
ONE OF THE FARM RESIDENCES
ONE OF THE CHURCH BUILDINGS
Types of buildings of four institutions in a rural community
where the labor income is very low. They are faithful indices
34
ONE OF THE RURAL SCHOOLHOUSES
THE HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING
of the economic prosperity of the community as a whole, which
is absolutely dependent upon the land.
35
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
This explains why country institutions are re-
tarded in many places. The farmer is not meaner
than other classes of men. Indeed, he is more inter-
ested in the Church in the average instance than the
townsman is ; but he has too small an income from his
labor to feel justified in an expenditure upon better
churches, consolidated schools, and stone roads. In
the State of Missouri, on gocd farm land, the general
testimony of farmers is that after paying the legal
rate of interest, the farmer retains merely enough
from his labor to pay the bills at the store. In New
York State, in the township nearest Cornell Uni-
versity, among farmers wTho have benefited greatly
by the service rendered them by the College of Agri-
culture, the yearly "labor income" among six hun-
dred and fifteen farmers, whose affairs were inten-
sively studied, was found to average four hundred
and twenty- three dollars. This is a little more than
one dollar and twrenty cents a day. If these men,
who are accounted so prosperous, have an income so
small, how are farmers in other sections of the country
to be- estimated? They consider themselves unable
to pay for the improvement of rural social institu-
tions, including the Church. The reason underlying
this opinion is what I have stated, that such improve-
ments can not be paid for with borrowed money:
they can only be paid for out of profit — and profit is
lacking.
Iowa is accounted a prosperous agricultural State,
but the editor of Wallace's Farmer, in a recent ad-
dress, publicly declared that the margin of profit in
36
ECONOMIC RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH
Iowa corresponds to the margin of child labor on the
farm. He declared that the "labor income" of the
farm is the "labor income" earned by the child. This
does not speak well for the prosperity of Iowa. It
would not be worth mentioning here, if it were not
a highly representative condition. There are more
States in the Union with a lower prosperity than there
are with a higher prosperity, as compared with Iowa.
It is difficult in Iowa to persuade farmers to improve
their schools and to better their roads. It is difficult
to persuade them that they can afford any rural
social improvements. The agent, however, of ma-
chinery, of fertilizer, or the seller of pedigreed stock
can convince the Iowa farmer that his wares are
needed on the farm. In a rough way, the Iowa
farmer is right. He has the money for productive
improvements, because his land value has increased,
but he has not the money for social improvements,
because his profit has not increased as fast as his land
value. In order to have social improvements in the
country, the farmer who is able to survive in that
region and to maintain himself as a farmer, must
have, above the normal rate of interest upon the
selling value of his land, a "labor income" that is
satisfactory and reasonably permanent.
An Agricultural Ministry? — For this reason the
Churches in the country are bound fast to the eco-
nomic improvement of farming. They have an im-
mediate interest in it. Those Churches have pros-
pered in the country that did not pay their ministers,
but required them to earn their living as farmers,
37
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
because economic prosperity and religious prosperity
were embodied in the same man. A Menonite bishop
in Pennsylvania has an eighty-three-acre farm, from
which in 1911 he took:
1,300 bushels corn, at 75 cents $775 00
800 bushels wheat, at 95 cents 760 00
Tobacco 953 00
Dairy products 500 00
Total $2,988 00
His labor expense for this'wTas about $620. Adding
S750 to this for a 6 per cent interest on the invest-
ment and $150 for fertilizer, you have a total ex-
pense of $1,520, which leaves a balance of $1,468
for the bishop's own "labor income" from a farm of
eighty-three acres. This minister is an ideal repre-
sentative cf the natural union of economic and re-
ligious affairs. We have here not a relation, but an
identity. One can not commend Menonite organiza-
tions to most American folk. It is not a conscious
organization, but a traditional one. It will not serve
outside the range of .this tradition; but it illustrates,
for the moment, the value, both for religious tenacity
and for productive farming, of the union of economic
and religious aims.
In the Mormon Church, also, the minister has no
salary. He must always be a farmer. On the same
reasoning the Mormon is a good farmer, because the
bishop of the State is, in his own person, both a
prosperous farmer and a successful religious leader.
He can not be the one without the other. Without
38
ECONOMIC RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH
commending the ingenuous arrangement, it illustrates
the close union of economic success with religious
power.
3. The Lord's Share of the Farmer's Profits
The third principle is that the farmer should give
of his prosperity to the support of the Church. The
argument here concerns the Church in existence in
the country. If it is true, as stated before, that the
Church has a close relation to the general economic
experience of the people, and that the Church is
related in its improvement to the profit, or "labor
income," of the typical farmer in the community,
then it follows that the farmer should recognize his
profit, or "labor income," from the farm as a religious
thing.
Farming becomes, with the serious man, a*n ex-
perience of Divine Providence. The man who tills
the soil is very near to Nature, and induced by her
many phases and moods to think upon the divine.
He is constantly contending, both in antagonism and
in co-operation, with the forces of nature, which have
always reminded the human being of the unseen. He
can not plant his crop except there be faith in him.
He must believe in the orderly process of nature or
he can not do the work of a farmer, and as "we learn
by doing," rather than by what is told us, he comes
in his very instincts, and certainly in all his thoughts,
to be a believer. Nature is so vast and her many
phases so new, her resources unbounded, so that a
man lives in wonder and moves in an atmosphere of
humility. The danger with the farmer is of fatalism
39
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
and of too great submission of himself. The almost
invariable experience of a farmer is some religious
feeling and belief.
There is needed, however, a definite cultivation of
country people in the matter of giving. For this
reason Biblical writers have their clear-cut preach-
ments in regard to the tithe. The Old Testament
expressed definite ideas in law and in prophecy along
this line. There was no doubt of their sense of the
intimate relation between the economic and the re-
ligious life of the Hebrews. The writers of the Old
Testament were preaching and legislating for farmers.
The Psalms are countrymen's songs. They bespeak
the intimacy of religious life with landscape, with
forest, and with field. Above all, in the social organ-
ization of the Jews it was written into their very
philosophy and enacted into their laws, that he who
prospered should proportionately give to the support
of the worship of God.
In our time these principles have been somewhat
modified. Persons of great devotion still consider
themselves bound to give a tithe. Their influence is
greater than their power to convince others and to
enlist them in obedience to Old Testament law. The
two methods which prevail in modern Churches are
the system of giving in envelopes, and what is
called the budget system. These two closely re-
lated methods of organizing rural prosperity have
great value in the training of country people in the
recognition of economic prosperity as a religious
experience.
40
ECONOMIC RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH
The Budget System cf Giving. — In the budget
system, the Church determines in a democratic way
what moneys shall be spent during the coming year.
This has the effect of regulating benevolence and puts
the Church in the place to command, as well as to
protect, the benevolence of the community. The
total amount to be given by the group of rural workers
is then distributed among them according to their
known income or ability to pay. This assessment is
cheerfully met by the members of the country Church,
if only it be arrived at in a democratic and effective
manner.
The contribution for the year being thus deter-
mined, envelopes are distributed throughout the con-
gregation, in order that each member may give in a
uniform receptacle, for each Sunday in the year, a
fraction of his yearly contribution. By a duplex
envelope having two pockets, the member is given
control of the distribution of his gifts between local
benevolence and the general interests supported by
the Church. There can not be a better method de-
vised than this for the gifts of a group of people who
are under no authority, and who voluntarily support
out of their profits an institution closely related to
their living. It is democratic, simple, flexible, and
gives to the people themselves the powers of recall
and of initiative, which in politics are very slow of
enactment.
4. The Traditional Christian Character and the Farmer
The fourth principle is that the moral character
of the productive and profitable farmer is the tradi-
41
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
tional Christian character taught in the old-fashioned
Church. To produce and to thrive, the farmer must
be austere, honest, and industrious. These things
have been taught in country Churches for genera-
tions. I will allow that in the present generation,
owing to the disturbed condition of country life, due
to reasons I have already named, there is very little
rural preaching. We are reminded by a great agri-
cultural teacher that the best of our preachers need
to learn "to preach in terms of farm life." They do
not do so at present. The minister who goes out into
the country to preach where he does not live, from a
town in which he may or may not preach, is city-
minded. He does not think like a countryman. He
does not preach the productive, profitable virtues.
He talks about archaeology and eschatology. He
tries to fit men for a heaven unseen by the example
of generations long since dead. He carries with him
an atmosphere of town and railroad and city life.
The books he reads are about urban affairs. The
daily newspaper, which he studies every morning, is
printed in the city, and probably despises the country-
man. But this is a temporary condition. Old-
fashioned preachers used to dwell on honesty, indus-
try, austerity. Let us look at these for a moment to
see what of value they have for productive and profit-
able farming.
The Traditional Virtues. — Only an honest man can
do well in the country, because co-operation is not
organized; it is an atmosphere in the country, and
its performances are not obligatory; they are volun-
42
ECONOMIC RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH
iary. Country people will not co-operate with a man
whom they do not respect and whose integrity is
doubted. They will not give him work. They will
not lend to him nor borrow from him; and just so far
as a man is dishonest in the country, he is by so much
less productive and less able to command that in-
stinctive co-operation, without which good farming
is impossible. In spite of the American unwillingness
to co-operate in formal ways, agriculture is essentially
co-operative in informal, instinctive, and mutual ways.
This is a constant, daily experience of the farm, so
that the Church in the country must teach and must
illustrate the domination of honesty over self-interest
in the farmer. Especially is this true in the country
community, because .every man's motives, as well as
his actions, are there transparent. Disguise is im-
possible and hypocrisy is not attempted. Every man
lives before the eyes of his fellows, and character is
accurately known.
In the same way the Church must teach industry.
This is also a part of the traditional message of the
Christian Church. The nations who are to-day
called Christian are more nearly free from idleness
than any peoples in the world; and it is in large part
due to the organization of economic response, by re-
ligious doctrine and by homiletic appeal. The
country minister, therefore, who cares for the country,
sees the necessity of continual culture in the labor of
the farm. As a matter of fact, in no other sphere of
modern life is industry so universal, making due
allowance for local difference, as it is in country life.
43
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
But the most productive of all traits in the country
is austerity. "All good farmers are austere," says
the economist, and he defines austerity to mean "the
producing of much and the consuming of little."
Generally, religious life in the country has this
austerity. It enters into all the establishments, es-
pecially rural. This austerity is, however, net a
preachment, but first of all it is a practice. It grows
out of the grim struggle with the soil — the necessity
of securing enough of what the soil will produce fcr
its tiller, and an abundance wherefrom he can secure
not merely a product, but a profit. As farming be-
comes increasingly profitable, it becomes increasingly
austere, because profit is got from the producing of
more and the consuming of ever less. It is not to be
wondered at that this austerity has taken in our time
the form of expelling from the country all play ac-
tivities, and excluding in a marked degree from the
country community degenerate individuals and irreg-
ular types, who are in doubt about their devotion to
productive work.
This austerity has crystallized into definite re-
ligious forms, for to be austere means that the men
shall rule, man being the producer and woman being
the consumer. It means also that the old men shall
rule over the young men, the women, and the chil-
dren. This means a government of elders, and rural
religion is generally elder-ruled. In the Churches in
America that have survived upon the soil, or that
have been born from the soil, the governing figure is
the "elder," and the "elder" is an economic type.
44
GOD'S BARN''
The Church organization here at one time paid a minister a
decent salary of $1,200. Doubtless the structure was built, and
for a short time maintained, on "borrowed" capital; i. e., the
amount contributed by the farmers to sustain this Church was
at first more than the "labor income." Finally the Church
society disbanded, the building abandoned, and subsequently
used for a barn.
The nearest church to this community is four and one-halt
miles distant. Hundreds of people were at one time served by
this deserted church, who still might be served by a church
located here. There is a social and spiritual need for a Church
organization in this particular community, but before one may
be maintained, there must be better farming, in order that the
labor "income" may be increased. Austerity, combined with
intelligent industry, will be much-needed virtues in the farmers
of this region. An agricultural and home arts training for the
oncoming generation may be the condition for the best realiza-
tion of these virtues and the blessings resulting from a good rural
Church organization.
45
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Projected into a religious form, he stands for austerity;
that is, the producing of much and the consuming of
little. His austere doctrine and grim, hard views of
life are the religious and moral corollaries of the stern
struggle in which he has dominated his religion, his
household, and his land, with a productive and a
thrifty mind.
The Marginal Rural People are Representative. —
These four principles may not exhaust the theme,
but they are elements in the bond of union which
holds the Church in the country to the life of the
people there. Only one thing more need be said.
The point of attachment, by which the economic life
is related to the religious, is in the marginal people
of the country. What is here said may not be obvi-
ously true of the prosperous farmer, and it may have
no bearing upon the degenerate or indolent farmers
of depleted sections. It is meant to be a description
of the religious and economic union of the life of
people barely able to survive. These people on the
margin of rural prosperity are the typical and, there-
fore, they are the representative, people in the
country. When one speaks of the country community,
he must measure every word by its power to describe
the surviving type; and the man and the family who
can barely get a satisfactory living in the country —
they represent all classes there. By their condition
are institutions made, and out of their life the. com-
mon experience comes. What is true of them is com-
mon to all. They live the representative life. Others
have special and peculiar privilege, or special and
46
ECONOMIC RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH
peculiar suffering. Institutions are not made of
things special or peculiar, but they are built out of
representative conditions. The representative life in
any community is the life of people barely able to
survive with satisfaction in that community.
These, the marginal people, aspire for a living.
Their ambitions are measured by a desire for the
necessities of life. Their prayers are breathed for
food and shelter, for a living wage, and for the com-
mon, universal necessities — education, music, news,
social intercourse, and hope. This prayer of itself is
the deepest of all religious aspirations. It is a desire
for the satisfaction of economic wants, and in the
Bible of the ordinary man the most precious of all
passages is that written, it is said, by a countryman,
in which he declares that his religion is a belief that
God satisfies the economic wants, for he says, "The
Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want !"
47
CHAPTER III
The Limitations, the Opportunities, and
the Possibilities of the Country
Church
By Matthew Brown McNutt, M. E., B. A., B. D.,
Field Assistant, Department of Church and Country Life, Board of
Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States of America, New York.
1. The Limitations of the Country Church
The limitations of the country Church are many,
as every one who has observed the situation knows
full well. What are these limitations? It is impor-
tant to know. An institution, like a
person, may have faults and not
know it — defects that could be over-
come.
It is a great kindness to any
person to have some faithful friend
to point out to him his shortcomings.
"O, wad some power the giftie gi'e us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
REV. MR. McNUTT And foo]ish notion.»
As the good angel of the manse has mirrored to
many a Dominie the little peculiarities that would
hinder his greatest usefulness, and thereby help him
48
THE APPROACH TO MT. CARMEL CHURCH
THE MT. CARMEL CHURCH
49
THE INTERIOR OF MT. CARMEL CHURCH
FIFTY YEARS BEHIND THE TIMES.— NOTES.
The road here traveled by Christians is surely sufficiently
rugged to cause them to walk circumspectly.
The membership of Mt. Carmel Church about three years
ago was seven. A "big meetin' " during the subsequent winter
doubled the membership, and there was great rejoicing at Mt.
Carmel. A distant relative of one of the leaders in the little
church, who lived in a neighboring county, was employed to
preach at Mt. Carmel every other Sunday. It was agreed to pay
the minister five dollars each preachin' Sunday; but there were
those in the Church who soon became of the opinion that too
much of the Church's money was going to one family — the family '
to which the preacher belonged. A faction of nearly half the
congregation was formed, which demanded that another minister
should be secured — one who did not have any ties, either by
blood or marriage, with the family in question. The result was
a split in the Church, which was already too weak for effective
service against sin.
There arc many Mt. Carmels throughout the land. Rural
people must learn to co-operate socially as well as economically;
and co-operation may frequently mean self-denial on the part of
families and individuals.
50
OPPORTUNITIES AND POSSIBILITIES
to overcome them, the writer of this chapter, in the
same spirit, would call attention to the limitations of
the country Church.
Antiquated Buildings and Equipment. — In the first
place, the average country church building and its
equipment are fifty years behind the times, and are
wholly inadequate to serve the modern needs of the
rural people. There stands the little old-fashioned
church of our grandfathers in the midst of the farmer's
up-to-date machinery and other modern equipment.
If our grandparents were again to return to earth,
these little old churches, which they built with their
hard-earned savings, would be about all they would
recognize among the many new things they would
find here now, unless it would be the "little red
schoolhouses." And I fear they would miss, most of
all, much of the piety and the spirit of devotion and
wcrship that in their day was so common. Should
any of these dear old grandfathers on this return trip
go to the garret and haul out an ancient grain cradle
and start to cut a swath around that sixty-acre oat-
field, the grandson would think he had lost his mind.
But would not the aged saint have just as much
reason for thinking that his son was "out of his head"
when he attempts to reap a twentieth-century spiritual
harvest with all the old-time church equipment?
Some friends told me recently of a Children's Day
service held in a country church located in the great
corn belt in Central Illinois, where there is probably
the richest soil in the world. At this service eleven
touring cars, with at least a total valuation of $10,000,
51
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
drove up around that little old church, which would
hardly bring $200, furnishings and all, at public
auction. The writer saw it. The seats were nothing
but straight board benches, and were said by one of
the ladies to be "regular back-breakers." The build-
ing was bare and unattractive- within and without.
There was little money here for Church support
— $300 a year for half the time of an aged, broken-
down minister, who lived and preached also in a
village seven miles distant, but who had just re-
signed. This is pathetic. Would that it were an ex-
ceptional case! But there are many such rural
churches.
Inadequate Financial Support. — The writer talked
with a country minister in the community adjoining
the one just considered, who was serving four such
country Churches. He said he was going to resign
his charge in the fall, because his salary did not
afford him a living.
A second limitation, therefore, is inadequate fi-
nancial support. Outside of one hundred and fifty of
the largest cities in the United States, there are
seventy-five thousand ministers who receive an aver-
age salary each of $573 a year. This is not a living
wage at the present high cost of living. It is no
more than the common, unskilled laborer is paid,
who requires no special preparation for his work. It
is very much lower than is paid for any other kind of
skilled labor, or in other professions. Railroad en-
gineers get an average salary of $1,200 a year, and
policemen $1,000. No man can be efficient and dis-
52
OPPORTUNITIES AND POSSIBILITIES
charge the many duties incumbent upon the country
minister to-day on the wage that the rural preacher
receives at the present time. It is simply impossible.
Inefficient Leadership. — Lack of efficient leadership
is another limitation of the country Church. In the
first place, our country ministers are not properly
trained, either in colleges or the seminaries, for the
work in country parishes. We may go back still
further, and include the preparatory and the public
schools. There is little of the real country mind and
spirit and life in any of them. The subject matter
taught is either foreign to the country, or it is taught
in such a way as to disconnect it from the farm. The
proof of these statements is found in the fact that so
few men and women trained in the higher institutions
of learning seek country positions as their first choice,
with the intention of remaining there permanently.
The trend of the rural minister and teacher, as
they gain experience and become proficient, is ever
away from the rural church and the rural school,
first to the larger town, and finally to the city, the
ever-enticing goal of "greater opportunity" and
"wider field of usefulness," so-called. It is bad
training that puts such foolishness into men's minds.
The back-to-the-country Church movement among
ministers comes only when they or some of their
family break in health — when there is lack of physical
capacity for hard work.
Weaknesses of the College and the Seminary. — The
average college and seminary professor knows little
about the country at first-hand; and he cares less, or
53
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
he would take more interest in the rural people. (I
have no grudge against any of them.) Most of these
men have been reared on the farm; but the country
they now know is the country of their youth, which
is a very different thing. Perhaps they have been
back to the farm a few times for a vacation. If they
have studied the country at all, it has been a study
about the country, rather than the country itself.
How can these gentlemen, at such long range, there-
fore, cither inspire young men and women to serve
positions in the rural districts or train them to be
efficient in that service?
Certain theological professors maintain that it is
not for them to teach men to farm. There is little
danger of their doing that, but there is great danger
of their training young men away from the farm
who are needed in the service of the country people.
Our seminaries and colleges will have done some-
thing for the country Church if they so impress young
men that they will consider a country field of labor
worthy of a life-work, the same as a foreign mission
field or a position in a city. But they can do much
mere than this. They can instruct their students how
to preach and teach the truth to country people in
terms of country life — how to open up to the farmer
the book of Nature in such a way that he may see
God in it and through it, that he may come to a
better understanding of the life and the forces about
him, and how to use these forces to the best advan-
tage. Besides, a study and discussion of rural condi-
tions and institutions in seminary and college would
54
OPPORTUNITIES AND POSSIBILITIES
be an invaluable aid to those who expect to work and
live in the country. A study of the country life itself,
its joys and sorrows, its pleasures and habits, its pos-
sibilities, its hopes, and its compensations, would be
a real asset to the country minister.
Country Church administration would be another
appropriate theme for study. It is too much to ex-
pect of the country minister that he shall solve all
these things for himself after he has begun work on
his field. He has something else to do then. I do
not mean that the country minister does not need all
the training he usually receives, but that he needs
something in addition to the ordinary college and
seminary courses.
The Need of Readjusting Ecclesiastical Adminis-
tration.— If our rural ministers were better fitted for
their work, they could not render their best service
under our present system of country Church admin-
istration.
As a rule, our country Churches are served by
ministers who live in towns several miles distant.
Each has two or perhaps three or more places at which
to preach. The different communities served by a
single minister quite likely present different condi-
tions which require different methods. He has not
much time to spend in shepherding his country flock,
and his supervision must of necessity be very general
in its character. He really does not get much ac-
quainted with his country folk. He is not of them.
He lives elsewhere. Our country Churches will never
be rightly served until they can have resident pastors.
55
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Lack of co-operation among the different denomi-
nations and with other rural institutions is another
thing that limits the usefulness of the country
Church,
So often we find a number of weak Churches in a
rural community, each struggling along with its own
little program, leaving the bulk of the work needing
to be done still untouched. Sometimes petty jeal-
ousies are found lurking between one denomination
and another, making any kind of community work
impossible. As a result of these things, the Church
presents to the world no solid front, either for evan-
gelizing or teaching the world, or for defense against
false doctrines and other evils. Many an inroad has
thus been made through the Christian ranks by the
evil one, while the disciples of Christ tarry to settle
some ecclesiastic difficulty.
Lack of Vision. — What the Church in the country
has failed to accomplish may in most cases be traced
to a lack of vision. For, as the Scriptures say, "Where
there is no vision the people perish." ;'The blind
can not lead the blind." Leaders without vision are
like dead men; they make no demands — except to be
buried — either upon their constituency or upon the
Almighty, who is able and willing to do more for His
people than they can think or ask.
Rural preachers often do not ask and work for
the biggest and best things. They see the farmer
struggling for existence — often living the life of a
slave — and have nothing to offer; cr where the
farmer is succeeding, they allow him to build great
56
OPPORTUNITIES AND POSSIBILITIES
houses and barns, stock his farm with blooded cattle,
put in the latest machinery on the market, buy his
neighbor's farm, or purchase an automobile, and
never present to him the proposition of a better
church, a more comfortable home, a more efficient
school, or a richer and more wholesome community
life.
The young people, in endless procession, are al-
lowed to march away from the farm to fill city posi-
tions without ever having been impressed with the
needs and possibilities of life on the farm.
The recreational facilities of the rural people are
often either neglected or they are turned over to
commercialized agencies, which are frequently de-
frauding and demoralizing. Little effort is made to
develop the home talent of the community. There
is meager opportunity for social intercourse. Life on
the farm grows more and more monotonous. There
is nothing left but work, work, work! The people
grow tired and restless, or they have n't enough life
left in them to desire anything better. They want to
get away from the farm, and they go by the thousands.
Who can blame them for going? The country Church
needs a new vision of its responsibility in the social
life of its people.
Summary of Limitations. — Lack of vision, inade-
quate leadership, failure of adjustment, a mistrained
ministry, poor equipment, and insufficient financial
support constitute, in my judgment, the most serious
limitations of the country Church of to-day.
57
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
2. The Opportunities of the Country Church
Although the limitations of the rural Church are
many, its opportunities and avenues for service are
more. Indeed, the opportunities for moral and re-
ligious service in the open country are so numerous,
and the need so pressing, that they create a responsi-
bility of such great proportions that the limitation-
bound Church is all but paralyzed by it. The rural
Church machinery can not move the great social
burden that is crushing it. Let us consider some of
the most important opportunities.
Co-operation of Rural School and Country Church.
— As to the co-operation with other rural institutions,
the country Church has been slow to see and to grasp
its opportunities to place the leaven and to inspire.
While the Church stands for education, she has
been content to see the country school worry along
at a snail's gait, making little progress in half a
century. The majority of our country schools are
still taught by untrained teachers, at a wage not
larger than is paid to a common day-laborer, with
very poor equipment, and often amid surroundings
and conditions that endanger the health of the pupils,
and which tend to corrupt their morals.
Has not the Church a mission to inspire something
better for the education of our country boys and girls
than these poorly-equipped and poorly-taught public
schools, which are now so common in our rural dis-
tricts? The deficiency of the rural system of educa-
tion is an opportunity of the rural religious organiza-
tion for a most helpful service.
58
INTERIOR OF PLEASANT HILL SCHOOL
Pleasantness all gone.
THE TYPICAL EQUIPMENT OF THOUSANDS OF RURAL SCHOOLS
Little more than reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic can be
taught with the equipment of this school.
59
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Championing Rural Life. — Farmers form a class
far more numerous than those engaged in any other
industry or business. The world is dependent for
the necessities of life upon the farmer's products; yet
his cause as a social being and citizen of the State is
the last to be championed. The city boys and girls
are protected by law; but whoever heard of a child-
labor law being enforced for country children? Work-
ing and living conditions have been investigated in
city homes, stores, schools, shops, factories, and
mines. Laws have been framed to prohibit abuses
and inhumane treatment of men, women, and chil-
dren, but too often they are not regarded on the
farm and in farm homes. Are there no such abuses
in the country, or are the country people so abun-
dantly able to take care of themselves? That there is
frequent abuse of labor, of the birthright of children,
of sanitation, of morals, of civic righteousness, of
marital relations, of social intercourse, and many
other infractions of common decency, can not be
successfully denied. A potent country Church might
do much to remedy these conditions that are now
so often tolerated in rural communities.
Church Mediator ship in Securing Co-operation. —
Some effort has been made at class organization
among farmers, but as yet it has only begun. The
principle of co-operation is a Christian principle, but
as yet it has been little developed among the millions
of people who till the soil. The rural Church has a
great mission to perform in bringing Ihe country
people up to the point where they can and will work
60
THE DRINKING CUP AT HEN PECK SCHOOL
A CROWDED, DUSTY CORNER OF A RURAL SCHOOL WITH AN OPEN WATER
BUCKET AND A COMMON DRINKING CUP
61
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
together in natural co-operation for their own good
and for the good of the whole race. A closer co-oper-
ation between country and city also would be mutually
helpful.
The spirit of suspicion that so commonly exists
among farmers is frequently mentioned as one of the
chief causes that prevents them from working in co-
operation with themselves or with city people. Truth,
honesty, and uprightness are virtues that the Church
inculcates in its members, and all true Christians
must practice them. Let the country Church be
vigilant in regard to its membership. When member-
ship in a Christian Church becomes a reasonably sure
guarantee of the establishment of these virtues in the
thoughts and actions of the individuals so favored,
suspicion among those who are blessed by Church
relationship must become practically nil. Either vol-
untary or forced fidelity to Christian principles will
thus become the corner-stone of all forms of co-
operation among those country people who associate
themselves with the prepotent country Church. On
the other hand, a similar moral guarantee in respect
to the members of city Churches would make possible
an economic co-operation between the rural Church
membership as a producer of raw materials and the
city Church membership as the consumer of such
materials; and the conditions for the exchange of
manufactured articles on a co-operative basis in the
reverse order would be equally favorable. Doubtless
many economic co-operative associations for the
mutual benefit of country and city people might be
62
A HOG LOT, WHICH CONTAINED ABOUT FIFTY HOGS, JUXTAPOSED THIS
NARROW RURAL SCHOOL LOT
63
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
formed through the mediation of Church organiza-
tions. The rural Church has here a great mission in
making right conditions, in pointing out the way, in
encouragement, and in initiation. This done, and
the country Church will, to a large degree, have
measured up to her duty in providing for the eco-
nomic welfare of her people ; for no one will claim that
the Church should become an active commercial or
business agent.
Readjustment. — Times are ever changing, which
bring forth new needs and conditions. To meet these
new demands successfully, institutions must ever be
changing their methods and their equipment. The
business world has recognized this, and has accommo-
dated its methods to the changes. City institutions,
including the Church, have kept up with the times.
While the farmer has adopted the new things in
farming, he has been quite content to move along the
old lines with reference to his Church and his school.
Whatever has come to him of the new civilization has
been forced upon him from the outside, rather than
developed within him by natural processes at work
in his own community. He neglects the new adorn-
ments and equipments because he has not been edu-
cated to appreciate them. The farmer buys a piano
at the solicitation of an agent, but may have little
musical taste or appreciation. For this reason we
find many musical instruments in rural homes, but
few players; books with few readers; pictures and
other home decorations, with little knowledge or ap-
preciation of art.
64
OPPORTUNITIES AND POSSIBILITIES
Life on the farm has changed as elsewhere. There
is a different kind of social life needed now in the
country from what our fathers had. There are many
new needs and demands. The Church, to minister
to these new conditions, should adopt suitable meth-
ods. But in a multitude of instances the old methods
are still in use, and these are not successful. There
is a new type of country Church needed now. The
country Church must adjust itself to modern con-
ditions.
Summary of Opportunities. — While the many op-
portunities of the country Church have by no means
been exhausted, the chief ones have been briefly con-
sidered, and these are: co-operation with the other
social institutions of the open country, the champion-
ing of rural life, mediatorship in rural business and
industrial evolution, and readjustment to the new
regime in rural affairs, to say nothing of the oppor-
tunities for rural evangelization, which is fully dis-
cussed in Chapter X.
3. The Possibilities of the Country Church
Turning now to the third part of my subject, I
would write hopefully and enthusiastically. I am not
among those who attach little importance to the
Church of the country folk, or who believe it has
outlived its usefulness.
The first step towards showing and realizing the
possibilities of the rural Church is to get a vision of
the country life of to-day, and of what is to be done
for the country people.
0 6£
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
There is something vastly more needed than to
hold a preaching service once a week, or once a
month, as in some cases, and to conduct a Sunday
school. Thousands of rural Churches have failed in
recent years under such a program, good as it might
seem. There was a time when a single program of
preaching sufficed. Not even a Sunday school was
needed. Life in the country was simple in those
early days. Knowledge of people and things had not
expanded. My mother has often told me that read-
ing, writing, and spelling were all the branches taught
in the country school when she was a girl. But some
people feel now that they can hardly afford to buy
all the text-books which our children are expected to
study in school. Knowledge has increased. For-
merly, the country parson, teacher, and doctor were
the only educated persons in the community; but it
is not so now. The farmers have the daily news-
papers, books, and magazines; and many of them are
high-school and college graduates, and these are rap-
idly increasing.
The Rise of New Conditions in Country Life. — The
social life of the country in earlier days was so simple
that it flowed on almost automatically. The neigh-
borhood gatherings were spontaneous, and centered
in the good old-fashioned "huskin'-bees," "apple-
peelin's," and such like. The very work itself was so
adjusted as to afford much sociability. Now, how-
ever, a lot of new social forces have appeared that
must be reckoned with.
Again, the country people have much more money
60
OPPORTUNITIES AND POSSIBILITIES
to spend than they used to have in the pioneer days.
The land has been cleared, or drained, or irrigated.
Orchards have been planted and roads made. Per-
manent buildings have been erected, and mortgages
paid oft". Telephone systems and rural mail routes
have been established. The preliminary work inci-
dent to the settling of a new country has been done.
The farmer is ready for new tasks. The rapid in-
crease of population has put far greater demands upon
agriculture as a business. Agriculture has become a
science, which calls for a new education of those who
till the soil, a new type of educators, a new literature,
and new legislation.
Many discoveries have been made in recent years
concerning man's living conditions. The laws of
hygiene and sanitation did not much concern our
forefathers. Many lives were lost on the farm from
typhoid fever and other diseases before the dangers
arising from a polluted water supply and contamina-
tion from other sources had been discovered. Rural
sanitation and nursing are to play a large part in the
new rural life.
The Dream and Then the Dawn. — The farmer has
only begun to dream of a beautiful, comfortable, con-
venient home. Architecture and landscape gardening
have not hitherto been in his program. Mr. Farmer
has not thought much about installing into his home
the modern appliances which help to lighten the work
of the rural housekeeper and home-maker.
But the dawn of a new country life is at hand.
In the face of these new rural conditions and achieve-
67
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
ments, the country Church finds itself confronted
with new demands. The possibilities of its usefulness
lie in meeting the issue now before the country people.
The Message. — The rural Church must continue to
preach, as it has done in the past, the gospel of re-
pentance and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ;
and then, in addition to this, it should preach the
A NEW COUNTRY RESIDENCE THAT NEEDS THE SERVICES OF A
RURAL ARTIST
gospel of social service in terms of modern rural life.
It must have a message for the farmer who is robbing
the soil and leaving it in a depleted condition of fer-
tility for the generations to come after him. It must
have a message for the indolent farmer, who does not
know how to till the soil with profit; or who, through
bad business methods, is failing, and is having a hard
68
OPPORTUNITIES AND POSSIBILITIES
life and not able properly to support his family and
the institutions of his community. The rural Church
must have a message for the prosperous farmer who
has more money than he knows how to use most in-
telligently, who seeks only "to get more money to
buy more land to raise more corn to feed more hogs
RESIDENCE OF A FARM TENANT
The rural Church must have a saving message for both the
man who lives here and his absentee landlord.
to get more money." It must have a message for the
absentee landlord and the retired farmer, whose in-
terests in the rural community lie no deeper than to
draw high rents from their lands. It must have a
message, too, for the farm tenant, who ofttimes works
and lives under great difficulties and discouragements ;
for the rural school-teacher, officers, and patrons of
69
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
the public school; for the grange and other farmers'
organizations, and for every other agency that has to
do with rural life, either directly or indirectly. The
rural Church must have a message for the new rural
home and the community which surrounds it. It
must take the progress of the centuries and the best
in our civilization and focus them upon the country-
man and his family in such a way that not only a few
farmers, but the farming people as a class, everywhere,
may realize the more fruitful and satisfying type of
rural life,' which is possible in this present age, and
which is due them. So that it may speedily come to
be said that the industrial, educational, social, recrea-
tional, religious, cultural, and home advantages and
facilities are as good for the tillers of the soil as for
any other class of citizens in the United States of
America.
It is possible for the rural Church to give such a
message to the country people. A faithful interpre-
tation cf the Scriptures in the light of modern rural
life will supply this gospel of social service to the
husbandman.
The Message in Action. — Preaching is one thing;
doing the Word is another. The Scriptures teach,
" Be ye not hearers cf the Word only, but also doers."
Every message that comes through the Church
should be accompanied with an honest effort to put
that message into practice, whether it be to quit sin
or to build a decent road to the church or the market.
The rural Church need not become a bureau of
politics, but it can inspire good citizenship and pa-
70
OPPORTUNITIES AND POSSIBILITIES
triotism, and give its patrons opportunity to cultivate
and practice these virtues. The rural Church need
not become a public school, but it can cultivate the
spirit of inquiry and research in the community. It
can put its people in the attitude of learners. It can
champion the cause of rural education, and do many
practical thirfgs to help the school teacher and the
school officers.
The rural Church need not turn itself into an
amusement house, but it can do wonders in leading
its people into wholesome recreations. The rural
Church is not supposed to teach scientific agriculture,
but it can pave the way for it by putting the farmers
in touch with literature on the subject and other
helps. The rural Church can set before a whole com-
munity an example of good business and of neat,
beautiful, and sanitary home surroundings, by con-
ducting its own business well and by keeping its
buildings and grounds in first-class condition. The
rural Church can help the farmer to great co-operative
systems by being itself the greatest co-operative in-
stitution in the community — the greatest social
servant.
The Church that does practical things for its com-
munity is the Church that wins its way into the good
graces and affections of the people. Nothing is for-
eign to the active, serving rural Church that concerns
the welfare of the farmer. There is simply no end to
the possibilities of the wide-awake rural Church. Let
it study the life of its people, the community, and the
country itself — its resources, its handicaps, and its
71
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
possibilities. Let it make a complete survey1 touch-
ing every item of rural life, chart and tabulate the
results, and celebrate victories, achievements, and
anniversaries. Let the country people "talk up" the
preacher, the Church officers, the services and min-
istries of the Church, the public school, and the com-
munity. We may glorify country life -and farm life
by making it happy, bright, joyous, and profitable.
Let us exalt the farmer and the business of farming.
In all phases of rural work we must advertise, adver-
tise, advertise!
All these things and many more are possible for
the country Church. The one thing necessary is
to set about intelligently and in earnest to realize the
best things for the country and the country Church
and people — and it shall be done.
1 The first essential in the revival of a country Church along scientific lines
is to make a social survey of the community which the Church serves. A
social survey is simply taking an inventory of the social stock in a community.
The Church as a human organization is a social institution. It is dependent
upon the people of its vicinity, their conditions and relationships. The twen-
tieth century country Church should know the institutional relationships of
all the people in its territorial sphere of influence, as well as their prosperity,
their social status, their religious inclinations, their education, their relative
abilities as leaders, and their disposition to be led. These facts must first be
known before intelligent plans of action may be formulated and effectively car-
ried forward. This survey should be made by the local Church itself; for this
activity in itself will tend to have a stimulating reaction.
The best brief directions for making a social survey known to the Editor is
entitled, "A Method of Making a Social Survey of a Rural Community." The
author of the pamphlet is Prof. C. J. Galpin, and it is published by the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin, at Madison, as Circular of Information, No. 29, January,
1912. Persons writirfg for the same should address the Mailing Department.
Other excellent and helpful bulletins on survey work are: "The Survey-
Idea in Country-Life Work," by Dean L. H. Bailey, of Cornell University,
Ithaca, N. Y.; "A Social Survey for Rural Communities," by George Frederick
Wells, Tyringham, Mass. (10 cents a copy) ; and the various reports of surveys
made in several States by the Presbyterian Department of Church and Coun-
try Life, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
72
CHAPTER IV
The Centralization of Country Churches
By Dr. Charles B. Taylor, Mc Arthur, Ohio.
It has been my lot to spend about forty years
ministering to the needs of various groups of country
Churches among the hills of South-
eastern Ohio. What I have to say
applies to the conditions which have
confronted me, increased my bur-
dens, and hindered the efficiency of
my work. I thank God for the
recollections of a long, precious,
and happy ministry, but can not
but be saddened a little when I
think how much more I might
have accomplished had there been
a wise centralization of Churches.
1. Conditions
The population of the rural districts of South-
eastern Ohio is steadily decreasing. The county in
which I reside has lost one-third of its population
within the past thirty years. Some of the townships
have scarcely one-half as many inhabitants as they
had thirty years ago. Columbus, Dayton, and the
73
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
other manufacturing cities are full of people from
these hills. They are in the factories, the railroad
yards, and the stores. Kansas, Oklahoma, and other
Western States have furnished homes for many
more.
A great many of our young people become college
students. As a rule, when they leave their homes to
enter college, they leave them never to return except
as visitors. Very many of them have become min-
isters and teachers; but their ministry and teaching
is far away. One family may be used as an illustra-
tion. It is a large family, whose members take to
books as a duck takes to water. There are three sons
and six daughters. Of the sons, one is a minister in
Missouri, one is a superintendent of schools in a town
of Western Ohio, and one is an employee cf the N ational
Cash Register Co., at Dayton. Of the daughters, one
is a wife and mother in Colorado, one is a trained
nurse in Texas, one is in Dayton, one in West Vir-
ginia, one is in college, and one teaches the first grade
in the public schools of her home town, and is the
only one of them left among the hills.
A few years ago, when I sustained official rela-
tions to the teachers and schools of the county in
which I live, there were three young women, superb
teachers, who remained with us until I began to
flatter myself that we should have the benefit of their
life-work. They are all gone. One teaches English
in the high-school of a city in Western Ohio, and the
cmniverous maw cf Columbus has gathered in the
other two, one of whom is a faithful teacher in the
74
CENTRALIZATION OF COUNTRY CHURCHES
city schools and one is the wife of an honored pro-
fessor in Ohio State University.
2. The Effects
The effects of this continued emigration upon the
schools and Churches of this region are deplorable.
The schools, which used to number forty pupils, now
have ten or twelve. As for the Churches, let a few
concrete illustrations present the situation.
(a) In a certain sparsely-settled community, eight
miles from any railroad, and the same distance from
any turnpike, one can stand upon the summit of a
hill and see three churches, one close by one's side,
one a half mile to the right, and one across a valley
on another hill, less than a mile away. One is a
Methodist Protestant Church, one a United Brethren,
and one a Free Will Baptist. All the people living
within range of these three churches are not enough
to maintain one Church well. Not one of the three
pays more than $75 annually for the support of a
pastor.
A minister who was appointed to serve one of
these Churches told me about his first service there.
He rode ten miles over a bad road in the cold weather.
Arriving at the church, he found a congregation of
four persons, one of whom was trying to coax a fire
out of wet fuel and a smoky stove, while the other
three stood shivering around it.
(b) In the hamlet of R there are about
twenty houses and three churches — Disciple, United
Brethren (Liberal), and United Brethren (Radical).
75
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
There are enough people in the hamlet and in the
surrounding community to make one good, hopeful
Church, if the three could be combined. As it is,
the little Churches are dying, and the community
suffers the loss.
(c) In a number of places in this part of Ohio,
Methodist Episcopal and Methodist Protestant cir-
cuits cover the same ground, thus dividing the energy
of the people and multiplying the labors of the min-
isters.
(d) In many places Churches of the same denomi-
nation are too close together. Some good old man in
years gone by wanted a church close by his house.
A young minister, full of zeal and ambition, came to
the circuit ajid thought that it would be a fine thing
to be able to report a new church building on his
field of work. The good old man and the young min-
ister got together, and the result is a church on Beech
Hill, a little more than a mile from the church at
Pine Fork.
One Example of an Over -Churched Field. — A good
example of the general condition of affairs comes
from the field where I spent the last three years of
my pastoral work. At the southern extremity of the
field is the village of T , with about two hundred
inhabitants. There are four churches in the place —
Methodist, United Brethren, Presbyterian, and Chris-
tian. Two miles east is another Methodist Church,
and a mile and a half north is another United Brethren
Church. The entire population living within conven-
ient distance of these six churches is about nine
76
CENTRALIZATION OF COUNTRY CHURCHES
hundred. The aggregate membership of these
Churches is about two hundred and seventy, or about
forty-five to each Church.
Four ministers labored among these Churches,
their fields extending elsewhere over wide circuits.
The Methodist Episcopal minister supplied five
churches. On one Sunday he preached three times
and rode eighteen miles. On the next Sunday he
preached twice and rode ten miles. He conducted
five series of special revival services during the year,
and did a large amount of pastoral work, visiting the
sick and burying the dead. His salary was $500 a
year and a parsonage.
The United Brethren minister had seven churches
under his care. He preached at each place once in
three weeks. During the year he held seven series of
special services. The churches were widely scat-
tered. The preacher's salary was $475. With that
pitiful amount he supported his family, paid house-
rent, and kept a horse.
The brother who ministered to the Christian
Church had four churches under his care. His salary
was about $480.
My field consisted of four little Presbyterian
Churches, extending along a line from north to south.
On one Sunday I drove twenty-four miles and
preached twice, and occasionally three times. On
the next Sunday, I drove eight miles and preached
twice. The territory under my pastoral care was
twenty-one miles long and eight miles wide. The
visitation of the sick and the large number of funerals
77
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
to which I was called added much to the burdens of
the work. Like the other brethren, I was expected
to hold a series of special services at each church. I
preached about two hundred sermons each year, and
drove nearly two thousand miles over rough hills and,
for the most part, red clay roads. The winter trips
were hard for a man of my age. My salary was
$800.
Four preachers ministered to twenty churches,
and the work broke down strong men. The other
three received salaries which were pitifully inade-
quate. Our congregations were small. The little
Churches lacked the enthusiasm which comes with
numbers. And the pity of it was that we covered
practically the same ground and crossed and re-
crossed the tracks of each other every day.
The Benefit of Church Consolidation. — A wise cen-
tralization could easily reduce these twenty churches
to ten, while supplying ample church privileges to
the entire population of that region. If this were
done, a number of good results would follow.
The churches would number ninety to a hundred
members each. Now they number forty-five to fifty.
There would be ten live, pushing, interesting Sunday
schools, instead of twenty feeble, struggling organi-
zations. The neighborhoods, now divided in their
interests, would each have a central rallying point in
both religious and social affairs. One minister could
be released to labor elsewhere. Two of the remain-
ing three would care for three churches each, and the
third would have four. These fields would be fas
78
CENTRALIZATION OF COUNTRY CHURCHES
more easily cared for than the present charges. The
salaries now paid to the four men would make living
salaries for the three. There would be a freshening
and quickening of the religious life of the whole re-
gion, and we feel sure that the great Head of the
Church would be pleased, and would give His rich
blessing.
These are the conditions in this region, and, to
some extent, they represent the conditions among
country Churches generally.
3. Difficulties in the Way of Centralization
It is easy to take a map of a community and
mark out with one's pencil just how the churches
should be centralized. But when one goes on a field
and tries to centralize churches, he soon finds that he
is not dealing with a map, but with people. Let us
frankly face the difficulties.
First. Difficulties arising from local attachment.
For example, one who has not labored in such fields
can not realize how centralization is made difficult
by the fact that very many of our country churches
stand in one corner of "God's Acre," the little country
cemetery where the friends and relatives are buried.
In the summer season, when the flowers are bloom-
ing, the people assemble early, and before they enter
the church they visit the graves and decorate them
with fragrant and beautiful flowers.
One can not but sympathize with these people.
When we talk of centralization, one good woman
says, "O, if we should leave our church, they would
79
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
let the graveyard go down. One old man says, "I
have worshiped in that little church all my life.
There I sat by mother's side; out there in the yard
she sleeps. There lie my two children and my sister,
and there they will lay me to rest. I can't think of
giving up our church to go elsewhere."
" IN ONE CORNER OF GOD'S ACRE
This is perhaps the strongest of the considera-
tions, local and sentimental, which stands in the way
of centralization.
Second. An exaggerated idea of the differences
between denominations stands as a barrier in our
way.
Really, in all the great essentials of faith and
practice, the denominations which occupy the ter-
ritory above described are on common grounds. The
things in which they agree are great and many. The
80
CENTRALIZATION OF COUNTRY CHURCHES
things in which they differ are few and small. They
all preach repentance toward God and faith toward
our Lord Jesus Christ. They all urge prayer, upright-
ness, love of God and love of one's neighbor. While
I love the Presbyterian Church and feel most at home
within her borders, I could very easily be a Congre-
gationalist or Methodist, without violence to my con-
victions of truth, and with hearty, earnest fellowship
with my brethren.
Third. The greatest difficulty is from the eccle-
siastical powers higher up — the Conferences, Synods,
Associations, and superintendents, whose vision seems
to be bounded by the work in their own denomina-
tions, and who push with impetuous zeal the interests
of "our Church," as if that were the whole Kingdom
of our Lord and Savior. On reading the above state-
ment, I realize that it is too strong, but I let it stand
as illustrating a tendency.
4. What Shall We Do about It?
First. The first thing to do is to get the Church
at large awake to the need of the centralization of
the country Churches. The present condition of
these Churches is a woeful waste of the Lord's money,
the labors of His ministers, and the energies of His
people. It is a detriment to the spiritual life of
country communities and a hindrance to the up-
building of the Kingdom of God in the souls of men.
// is a burning shame and a sin against God. When-
ever the Church is really awake to these truths, we
will find a way to centralize.
6 81
14-155
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Second. Let the ministers on these fields empha-
size the great truths in which the Churches agree.
Let them preach to their people the pressing need of
union. Let them urge the people to worship together,
and hold social reunions. Hold a picnic at Pine Fork
for the people of Pine Fork and Beech Hill. Get the
young people to intermingle. When the hearts of
the people flow together, the union of two Churches
is not difficult.
Third. God hasten the day when denominations
whcse faith and methods are practically the same
shall be united in cne. To some extent this has been
done. Forty-three years ago, when I began my
ministry, the Presbyterians of Washington and Athens
Counties were divided among four denominations —
Old Schocl, New School, United, and Cumberland.
They have now all come together here, and the good
results are apparent. Similar unions should take
place elsewhere, only en a much broader scale. There
is no longer any adequate reason for the existence of
the Methodist Protestant Church separate from the
Methodist Episcopal Church. Surely, there is nj
adequate reason fcr the continued existence of the
two United Brethren denominations. If two or three
unions would take place along these lines, it would
help wonderfully in solving the country Church
problem.
Fourth. But the great thing to do is for the dif-
ferent denominations interested to get together with
a determined purpose to centralize the country
Churches by a fair system of exchange. "A fair ex
82
CENTRALIZATION OF CQUNTRY CHURCHES
change is no robbery." Let a committee be ap-
pointed, one from each denomination represented in
the field, and let this committee look over the field
carefully and prayerfully, and decide what should be
done. For example, suppose there is a Methodist
Church and also a Presbyterian Church on Clay Run.
The Methodist Church numbers sixty members and
the Presbyterian Church thirty. Meanwhile, over on
Sugar Fork there is a Presbyterian Church of sixty
members and a Methodist Church with thirty. The
right thing to do is for the Presbyterians on Clay
Run to go to the Methodists, and for the Methodists
on Sugar Fork to go to the Presbyterians. Let the
committee visit these fields and hold meetings with
the people, and get them together.
We stand ready for helpful suggestions from any
source. We are ready for any practical and prac-
ticable method. But let us make up our minds
that, for the sake of our Lord and His Kingdom,
the centralization of these Churches must and shall
be accomplished. If we really mean to do it, we will
find the way.
It is very interesting and encouraging to see the
efforts that the various Church denominations are
making to secure the centralization or consolidation
of the weaker Churches in rural districts. The need
is becoming so insistent that a real earnestness is
beginning to take hold of bodies that are from time
to time delegated to consider this subject. As Dr.
Taylor suggests, the Church organizations, through
83
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
their higher officials, must not only encourage the
movement, but must take definite action to accom-
plish desirable results. If the various Church bodies
continue to neglect this plain and pressing duty, the
people themselves may be expected to take the in-
itiative— with varying results.
There are several practical ways for realizing the
centralization or consolidation of Churches. A brief
consideration of the most important methods may
prove helpful to many rural communities that are
looking for ways and means out of their distress.
Until the various denominations do begin earnest,
aggressive, and effective action for the relief of over-
churched rural communities, these plans may prove
suggestive.
1. Union under a Denomination
The Churches of different denominations in a
community may, by the voluntary agreement of the
people, be consolidated into one Church under one
denomination. The denomination may be the same
as one of the several Churches centralized, or a de-
nomination different from any of them. This method
has been recently (in 1913) effected in the union of
the three Churches in the village of Dublin, Ohio.
There were three Churches there — a Presbyterian, a
Congregational, and a Christian. During the summer
of 1912 a cyclone swept away the buildings of the
first two Churches mentioned. The Disciples
promptly offered their church edifice to the two or-
ganizations made homeless. The offer was accepted,
84
CENTRALIZATION OF COUNTRY CHURCHES
but it soon became apparent that a union of all three
congregations was highly advisable and desirable.
After due consideration, a union was effected, and
the new, consolidated Church became a member of
the Congregational denomination, and is now using
the former Christian Church building.
THE NEW UNION CHURCH AT LINDENWOOD, ILLINOIS
It was dedicated in 1909
2. Union under No Denomination
A union Church of no particular denomination
may be formed. In 1868, at Lindenwood, Illinois, the
six denominations of Wesleyan Methodists, Methodist
Episcopal, Episcopal, Christian, Baptists, and Seventh
Day Adventists formally united to form the Union
Church of Lindenwood. "The organization consisted
simply of the election of two deacons and a committee
85
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
of three to engage a pastor or supply for the pulpit,
and a written agreement to take the Holy Scriptures as
the only rule of faith and practice, and Christian char-
acter the test of fellowship." This simple organiza-
tion has stood the test for forty-five years, and is still
used, although several other denominations have
contributed toward the membership of this Church.
Ministers have been drawn from various denomina-
tions, the last three being Congregationalists. The
plan seems to be working admirably.
3. Federation of Denominations
Churches of different denominations may federate
locally. At Chesterland, Ohio, the Baptists and Con-
gregationalists, being unable to unite as one Church,
have formed a very close local federation. One of
the church buildings was repaired for the Use of both
congregations, and both united in calling a minister
to serve both. It happened to be the Congregational
Church building that was repaired, and a Baptist
minister that was called. Both congregations worship
in the same church building, and both are being
served by the same pastor and attend the same serv-
ices. Each organization assumed its fair share of
the local Church support, the board of trustees of
each being responsible for the finances of their re-
spective organizations. Each organization supports
the benevolences of its own denomination. New
members are received into either organization ac-
cording to their individual preference. The arrange-
ment has been in operation for over a year, and seems
86
CENTRALIZATION OF COUNTRY CHURCHES
to be working very satisfactorily. No friction has
arisen, and the religious work of the community has
been strengthened.
4. Interdenominational Church Trades
An exchange of churches located in different com-
munities may be made among the various denomina-
tions. Dr. Taylor has fully explained this method on
page 83. If the various denominations would heartily
co-operate, much might be done to relieve the situa-
tion by this plan. If the powers "higher up" in the
ieading denominations would appoint an interde-
nominational rural church commission in each State
to carry forward this work actively and energetically
for a period of about five years, they would likely
have enough to keep them busy, and no better service
could be rendered the Christian people in rural com-
munities.
The New Organizations Evil
In the meantime, the various denominational
Church organizations, as well as the people them-
selves, should see to it that no new Church societies
are organized in rural communities already adequately
provided with Church privileges. In the past it has
been a great deal easier for a young and over-energetic
minister to organize a new congregation of his de-
nomination in a rural community in the neighborhood
of the congregations of other denominations than it
has been for the people so organized decently to
support the new organization. The great need of
the Kingdom of Christ in rural communities to-day
87
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
is the concentration of the wealth, the effort, the
membership, and the worship of its citizenship.
Caution
There is a strength in denominationalism — in the
association of a large number of local societies into
a great Christian organization for the purpose of co-
operation in the formation and realization of definite
religious policies, in the development of permanent
and efficient leadership, and the distribution of op-
portunities and responsibilities for rendering Christian
service. The inroads of evil are always made at the
weakest point; and certainly no rural Church fortifies
itself when it cuts loose from the strength that comes
with comprehensive plans and well-organized efforts
under the foremost Church leadership. Church
leaders must be specialists in religion, not in agri-
culture. When the local spiritual and moral leader
is forced to depend wholly upon the congregation he
serves, financially and socially, and thereby forced to
conform to its sentiments in moral, religious, and
spiritual matters, we may well question the plan rec-
ommended under the second division above.
An example is cited at Ogden, Kansas. The
sensible people of this village decided to unite for
religious worship, and so built a union church. Every-
body worked enthusiastically in building the edifice.
The beautiful stone structure was finally dedicated —
and then the weaknesses of the plan began to assert
themselves. Who should be the minister? Should
he be a Methodist, a Congregationalist, a Presby-
88
CENTRALIZATION OF COUNTRY CHURCHES
terian, or a Baptist? Well, no agreement was reached,
and the new church stands to-day unused, while men,
women, and children are deprived of religious train-
ing and Church life. There can be no garden without
a gardener. In an attempt to be undenominational,
This attractive and modern church building was erected by
the Christian people living in the vicinity of the country village
of Ogden, Kansas. Four different denominations participated
at its dedication. Its ruling body is undenominational. The
Christian service being rendered is nil.
this local Church society forfeited those elements so
necessary to a vigorous and continuous religious
activity.
References
For the benefit of those who may wish further to
investigate this subject, we append the following ad-
89
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
ditional instances of successful centralization of
Church interests:
Greenwood Union Church, Greenwood, Mass.
Federated Church, Tyringham, Mass., Rev. Geo.
Frederick Wells, Pastor.
Union Church, Concord Junction, Mass., Rev.
S. N. Adams, Pastor.
Memorial Union Church, Springfield, Mass., Rev.
E. P. Berry, Pastor.
Union Church, Ridgefield Park, N. J.
Union Church, Proctor, Vt., F. W. Raymond,
Pastor.
Alma, Mo.
Bernardston, Mass.
Somerset, Mass.
90
CHAPTER V
Efficiency and Leadership
By Rev. N. W. Stroup, D. D.,
District Superintendent, Cleveland District, Methodist Episcopal
Church, Cleveland.
1. The Nature of Leadership
Leadership is another word for genius. Efficiency
stands for business in religion as well as religion in
business. The few lead and the
many follow. Men go astray like
sheep, and come back very much in
the same way, i. e., they follow a
leader. The descent of vice is easier
and more rapid than the ascent of
virtue. We may drift into disease
and sin, but we must will and work
our way back into moral health and
Tightness. The latter calls for per-
sonal conviction and conquest in
preparing the way and walking therein. Emerson's
"Representative Men " and Carlyle's "Heroes " have
attracted the attention of the world, because they
were pre-eminently the leaders of their era. The
world has had its adventurers, its leaders in coloniza-
tion, its philosophers, and its great generals; but this
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DR. STROUP
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
new century is to be the time of bloodless battles,
and our leaders are to be moral and spiritual heroes.
The Prince of Peace is to be our great Captain, and
men are to catch His spirit of courage and self-denial.
"The demand for a few strong men," says John R.
Mott, "is even more imperative than more men."
The times demand individuals who not only have the
prophet's vision, but who possess the power to in-
spire and lead others to do the task.
The prophet of God is the moral general who
commands the latent forces of his audience or com-
munity. His message is a call to ministry, and in
that sense each leader may be a Grant or a Sherman
in the war against sin. The response to the call will
depend upon the authority of the messenger. It was
said of Jesus that He spoke with authority, and not
as the scribes and Pharisees. Luther received his
commission direct from God, and then went forth to
command the men of Germany to fight for religious
freedom and personal purity. It could have been
said of John Knox, as it was of Napoleon, that his
presence was equal to ten thousand men on the field
of battle. His word was a command to all Scotland,
and it even compelled the attention of kings and
queens. John Wesley, like John the Baptist, was
sent to prepare the way of the Lord, and to call Eng-
land out of her spiritual sleep and moral lethargy, to
take up again the redemption of a race.
The leaders of the present hour are not only the
watchmen on the walls of our modern Zions, but they
are the divinely commissioned commanders of the
92
EFFICIENCY AND LEADERSHIP
economic, political, social, and moral forces of our
twentieth century civilization. Then we should not
forget that in the very forefront of the advancing
armies must be found the spiritual leaders. It is our
privilege to call men to battle for virtue and against
vice, for knowledge and against ignorance, for temper-
ance and against drunkenness, for faith and against
doubt, and for love and against hate. "The word of
command," says Mr. Roosevelt, "is useless in the
fight unless a reasonable number of those to whom it
is uttered not only listen but act upon it. Talk —
mere oratory — is worse than useless if it has not a
worthy object, and does not cause men to actually
put in practice the message received."
The new patriotism must be interpreted in the
terms of Christian conquest. The call for volunteers
must be recognized as the call of the Christ. The
Church, in city and country, will be the institution
through which the modern patriot will find expression
of the higher sacrifice of victorious conquest. "The
moral substitute for wTar, " that Professor James de-
clared was the need of the hour, will be realized in
the army of Christian soldiers to be found in every
community. The number of private soldiers who
fight in the ranks may vary from year to year,
but there must ever be a sufficient number of valiant
leaders to command the regiments and to organize
new recruits.
2. Rural Leadership
The rural communities call for a special type of
leadership. We need men who appreciate the great-
93
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
ness of the field, and who will be able to discover and
train -those who are waiting for some one to command
them. An institute lecturer recently declared that
in a certain community where it was commonly
thought that no young people remained, the right
call brought forty young men, all ready for service,
and only waiting for some one to redirect their rest-
less energy. We must not fail to utilize this latent
leadership, since, as Mr. Mott says, "The cities
themselves need help, and can not be relied upon to
furnish the Christian leaders of the future." It is a
common statement in rural communities that "there
are no leaders." Some explain by saying that the
best young people have for many years been moving
into the cities. Others assert that "the people in
this section do not tolerate any boss." Democracy
is made synonymous with individualism. They have
a mistaken conception of leadership and an equally
false notion of co-operation. Dr. Hale stated a few
years ago that "together is the twentieth century
word." This is one essential of efficient leadership.
There must be more federation and less competition,
more brotherhood and less hate. In the interest of
economy, as well as comity, we must stand together.
The strength of an army is accounted for, not by the
character of the individual soldier, but by the united
loyalty to the commander-in-chief.
The editor of a rural magazine, in a request for
an article on "The Country Church," stated that
while they were anxious to present to their readers
things that had actually been accomplished, and were
94
EFFICIENCY AND LEADERSHIP
being clone, in terms of real experience, they did not
have any use for general discussions or speculative
theories of what must or must not be done. The rural
Churches have for many years been the victims of
remarks and resolutions. They have been given
"absent treatment," which may be very interesting
for the practitioner, but apt to- prove fatal for the
patient. The rural ministers agree with the editor
and say, "Let us have something real and practical
that will supply our actual necessities and aid in the
solution of our problems."
The writer was reared in the country, and saved
at the altar of a village church, but two years ago
was brought face to face with conditions that spoke
of religious stagnation and disease, of discouragement
and defeat, and of many problems and vital needs.
The Churches were decreasing in membership and
diminishing in efficiency. The pasters were inade-
quately and irregularly paid. The term of service
was short, and there was a very evident lack of plan
and purpose in the work of those who had been se-
lected to lead. Buildings were out of date, and very
deficient in their adaptation to modern conditions.
There was no clear vision, and a sad lack of efficient
leadership.
3. A Country Church Commission and Its Work
A brief consideration of the work of the Country
Church Commission of the Cleveland District, East
Ohio Conference, will not be amiss here.1 The
> For more complete information of the work of this commission and a list
of its publications address the author of this chapter.
95
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
pastors and leading laymen of the various charges
were called together in group meetings, and rural
conditions were freely discussed and thoughtfully
studied. Each Church was considered with respect
to its local environment, and its relation to the com-
munity of which it was a part. The organization of
"The Country Church Commission" was a very
logical outgrowth of the attempt to better conditions
and encourage the discouraged leaders. The Com-
mission is composed of five prominent laymen and
three pastors, all of whom possess the spirit of the
Country Life Movement. This action proved the
beginning of many good things. Earnest thought and
honest endeavor are the good soil out of which is
certain to come wise means and methods of ministry.
The work of the Commission had to do mainly with
better salaries for the pastors, better buildings through
which to do the work, better methods and means, and
a new vision of social service and community-building.
The work of the Commission was also to be educa-
tional, inspirational, and supplemental. The men in
the field upon whom fell the heavier portion of the
burden needed just this sort of assistance. It would
tide the pastors over many hard places, and put new
life into many languid laymen. Churches that had
stood for two generations were to be rebuilt and re-
adapted. The young people were to be provided with
social rooms and suitable entertainment. The men
and women outside of the Church were to be inter-
ested and enlisted in a campaign of community-
building. The children of all the families must find
96
EFFICIENCY AND LEADERSHIP
in the Sunday school a center for training in the
Christian principles of right living. This was to be
done by well-trained teachers, using the latest ap-
proved methods of instruction.
4. Pastoral Leadership
In one charge, where a church had remained un-
altered for almost three-quarters of a century, a new
pastoral leader came. The auditorium was refinished,
and attractive social rooms were arranged in the
basement. With this new equipment, the young
people were gathered together for social evenings to
the number of one hundred. A Men's League of
fifty members was organized, and they now have
regular monthly suppers and socials. For years the
dance-hall had held the young people, largely because
the Church had failed to provide a place for them.
A generation ago there was no place in the church for
the boy and the girl.
Churches that had been closed on week nights
were opened, and thus they helped fill empty churches
on Sundays. Young people who are locked out of
churches during six days each week are not apt to
fill our churches on Sunday. One pastor secured the
consent of his Official Board to use the basement for
a boys' club-room. This was the first practical plan
for saving the boys cf that village. The pastor spent
much time with the young men, and a point of con-
tact was made with the un-churched portion of the
community. Fathers who had never attended church
occupied a pew on Sunday, and freely gave their
7 97
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
money to aid the man who was ministering to their
sons; so that the solution of the boy problem helped to
solve the man problem. The Master Himself declared
that "He came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister;" and this wise pastor sought to put the
emphasis where Jesus had placed it, and then trusted
Him for results. The emphasis was transferred from
saving the Church to that larger appeal of saving the
community. The village church was no longer a one-
day affair, where people sang about the "Sweet by
and by." Religion became a natural part of the
every-day life of the people, and honest business on
Monday was made to square with an honest gospel
on Sunday. Clean athletics were linked up with a
clear conscience. The pastor demonstrated the fact
that Christianity has to do with the whole man —
mind, body, and spirit — and that in a very real sense
these three are one.
The question of Sunday baseball was decided not
by vote of the village council, but by the Christian
conviction of the young men on the ball team, who
for ten months had been attending the "Sky Pilot's"
night school. The Sabbath desecrating element of the
village awoke to find that the young preacher reaped
a splendid harvest as a result of his faithful sowing.
While the enemy slept, he had sown good seed and,
in strict accord with divine law, reaped a good harvest.
Another pastor won back a lost community by
the force of personal leadership. He became a "social
engineer," and mapped out his program as carefully
as Cecil Rhodes did his policy of continent recon-
98
EFFICIENCY AND LEADERSHIP
struction. He made it broad enough to appeal to
the entire community, and sufficiently practical to
enlist the best brains of the village. Realizing that
to know the field was the first essential in any ad-
vance movement, a careful survey of two townships
was made, and a house-to-house census taken. The
study was made to include social, economic, and edu-
cational features, as well as the moral and religious.
With this information secured, the next step was to
inform the people of the facts, many of which were
new and startling, even to the oldest inhabitants;
and then to arouse them to action in seeking to meet
the needs as they had been revealed.
The pastor considered himself a community-
builder, and that has to do with schools and homes,
as well as Churches. He found his program must
include clean athletics, under Christian leadership;
good roads, better sanitation, and economic co-oper-
ation in buying and selling. Team-work among the
boys when playing baseball, and team-work among
the farmers in their daily tasks and problems. The
foreigner must be reached, and this added another
item to his program. Community gatherings must
be encouraged, and new community ideals must be
kept before the minds of young and old. The Church,
instead of being open one hour of one day a week,
was now open several evenings each week; lectures,
entertainments, and sociables were made contribu-
tory to the one supreme purpose of the Master, who
came to seek and to save the lost.
The result was that the Church came to occupy
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SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
its rightful place as a religious and social center. The
old building was repaired and repainted. The yard
was kept clean and neat. The horse-sheds were re-
built, and everybody was happy over the miracle
that had been wrought by an earnest application of
common-sense methods. The few faithful saints who
were trying to hold the fort had long feared that the
end was near. They only dared to hope that it might
not come during their day. The farms had changed
owners, and many persons wTith a foreign accent were
now living on the old homesteads, where for genera-
tions father and son had lived and labored and died.
The new pastor took an inventory and came to the
decision that the Christian thing to do was not to
retreat, but to retrench and reinforce. Acting upon
this conviction, he went out after the Bohemians,
Finns, and Russians, and said, "We want you and
your children to come to our church and Bible school."
Out of two Greek Catholic families he added six new
scholars to the Sunday school. These • children are
seldom absent, and always bring their offering for
both services. Our churches are to serve the people
— all the people — all the time. They are the com-
munity's servants, and not for any one class or na-
tionality. We may adapt them to modern condi-
tions, but we dare not allow them to be closed.
In line with the Forward Movement in rural
Church work, one pastor led his people in the con-
struction of a sidewalk from the electric railway sta-
tion to the center of the village, and the placing of a
few street-lamps to guide the travelers who often
100
EFFICIENCY AND LEADERSHIP
travel without lanterns and rubber boots. This
caused the " unregenerate " to speak a good word
instead of a bad one for the Methodists, when in the
spring of the year they were able to walk on the top
of the ground. The gravel on the sidewalk during
week days helped to put "sand" into the sermon on
the Sabbath.
The rural young people in some communities
were unable to secure good books, owing to the fact
that the village had no library. A little investiga-
tion opened a way by which the Church could aid in
supplying this need. On invitation, the State organ-
izer of libraries came and looked over the field, and
replied that loan libraries of two hundred volumes
would be furnished for the people, and the only ex-
pense would be the cost of transportation to and from
the State Library. These books could be used from
three to six months and then exchanged for others.
This plan has already been put into operation in
several villages and rural centers, and is proving to
be one of many practical ways by which the pastor
may be of real service as a community leader, sup-
plementing the prescribed program of Church work.
5. The Greatest Need — Co-operation
The pride and at the same time the peril of the
farmer is his independence. His environment and
his occupation make co-operation all but impossible.
While the nation is indebted to rural life for the pro-
duction of moral stability and individual conviction,
the farmer has not been able to cope commercially
101
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
with city combines and municipal middlemen, who
have robbed him of millions of dollars annually. The
producers of the world's food must get together, and as
a means to that end the country Church must be a
sort of John the Baptist to prepare the way. Rural
co-operation must be built on rural confidence, and the
latter goes back to the bed-rock of Christian brother-
hood. The Grange and other social agencies have
done good work, but they have not and can not do the
thing that is most needed without the assistance of
the country Church, which holds the key to the so-
lution of the problem, and must be one of the chief
agencies in the Country Life Movement of America.
6. Three Great Rural Leaders
The results brought about in Denmark by the
good Bishop Grundtvig in behalf of the rural people
of his own nation constitute one of
the most commendable examples of
consecrated leadership in recent
years. He brooded over the condi-
tions until his whole being was
stirred; then with "prophetic sense
he saw that, if salvation was to
come, it must be brought about
from within, through the enlighten-
ment of all the people, and that the
bishop grundtvig individual must be educated to be
more virtuous, more intelligent, more skillful, and more
industrious, and to have a true patriotism for the re-
viving of the soiritual life of the masses." Though
102
EFFICIENCY AND LEADERSHIP
his work began with the economic and intellectual
phases of life, it culminated in the moral and spiritual
life.
Another noted leader worthy of our careful study
was Charles Kingsley, who for thirty-three years was
the pastor of the country parish of
Eversley. He possessed a unique
personality, and was a man of mag-
nificent parts; the one among the
many who was willing to trust God
that his talents could be well in-
vested in the work of a country
village. He was as gentle as a
woman, and yet heroic. He was
sympathetic, and yet stalwart. He
CHARLES KINGSLEY . • j , .• i tj
was poetic, and yet practical. He
possessed humility without being either weak or pas-
sive. He was tender and sensitive to others' wrongs,
but forgetful of himself and his own suffering. He
was aggressive in action, and yet temperate in spirit.
He was morally fearless, and spiritually heroic.
Kingsley was a model pastor and a masterful preacher.
He visited the people night and day, until he knew
every man, woman, and child by name, and, better
still, he knew their inmost needs. Without regard to
class or culture, he "went about doing good." "If
man or woman were suffering or dying, he would
go to them five or six times a day — and night as well
as day — for his own heart's sake, as well as for their
soul's sake." "What is the use," he says, "of talking
to a lot of hungry paupers about heaven?" He be-
103
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
lieved that they must first be fed and made to feel
some degree of satisfaction with their earthly lot.
He was a believer in saving the whole man. Our
present-day social theories were matters of every-day
practice with him in his work at Eversley. He was
a community-builder. He was, above all, a spiritual
leader.
Every rural pastor and layman ought to study
the life of John Frederick Oberlin, another great
leader who was more than a century
in advance of his generation. The
story is as inspiring as it is suggest-
ive to the Christian leaders of this
present century. He was the eight-
eenth century prophet of a new era
in the country Church. What he
taught, as well as the things he
wrought out in deeds, give him high
rank in the annals of missionary
oberlin heroism.
The breadth of his program, the sanity of his
preaching, and the courageous patience displayed in
dealing with the inhabitants of a "wild, rough, and
barren" country provides an adequate conception
of a rural pastor who possessed both vision and
valor. He belonged to those whom the apostle
described as a peculiar people, zealous of good
works. He was a scholar in the best sense of
that term, without any taint of pedantry. He
was a genius, with the practical adaptation of a
business expert.
10-1
EFFICIENCY AND LEADERSHIP
Nothing human was foreign to this prophet of
God in his work as a Christian minister. He always
kept the spiritual welfare of his people supreme, while
at the same time he labored to transform environ-
ment so as to enrich the social, industrial, and eco-
nomic life of each family. Everything was done with
a religious motive, and thus he sought to spiritualize
the total life of the community. He has been one cf
our leaders for more than a century, but only within
recent years have educational authorities seen the
wisdom of making agriculture a part of the curric-
ulum of our rural schools.
The village of Waldbach and its environs was to
him a divinely selected parish. He felt commissioned
of Christ to spend and be spent for this people. The
call was not merely to evangelize, but to Christianize
the people and the entire social order of which they
were a vital part. He did not think it sufficient to
merely preach to them on Sundays and leave them
in ignorance. They must be educated, and as their
chosen leader, he would supply that need. They
were without knowledge as to farming, and conse-
quently they were poor and unhappy. He would or-
ganize an agricultural society, and enlighten them as
to soils, fertilizers, proper seeds, and have them use
care in adaptation of vegetables and cereals to par-
ticular kinds of land. This necessitated sending to
other countries for choice seeds and plants, and the
replacing of their crude farm implements with modern
ones, that he ordered from Strasburg. They were
shut off from civilization and needed good roads, and
105
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
this need he was able to supply as a part of his social
program.
What a great work a large man can do in a small
field, if he will but follow in the steps of "Him who
went about doing good!" He never narrowed his
work, and did not believe that the "human soul
could be adequately considered apart from its food,
its home, its work, and its wages." It has taken the
Church a long time to appreciate the wisdom of such
leadership, but we see the dawn of a new era in the
work of the rural Church.
What was accomplished through the labors of
these men is a splendid justification of our plea for
trained leadership in behalf of the millions who live
outside our great cities.
7. The Call of the Rural Church
The country Church is the one institution that
has done and can do most to enrich individual char-
acter, make homes happier, and daily toil more at-
tractive and gainful. Other societies may supple-
ment, but none can replace the work of the Christian
Church. As its steeple towers above every other
building in hamlet and village, so its ideals, its inspi-
ration, its message and ministry to men, its hopes
and helps are pre-eminent. This presents a need, a
duty, a call, and an opportunity rich in possibilities.
The need is urgent and the call is commanding. We
would pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth
leaders who are as practical as they are pure, and as
productive in ministry as they are progressive in
method.
106
EFFICIENCY AND LEADERSHIP
GIVE US MEN.
"Give us men!
Men from every rank,
Fresh and free and frank;
Men of thought and reading,
Men of light and leading,
Men of loyal breeding,
Men of faith, and not of faction,
Give us men! I say again,
Give us men!
"Give us men!
Strong and stalwart ones;
Men whom highest hope inspires,
Men whom purest honor fires,
Men who trample self beneath them,
Men who make their country wreathe them
As her noble sons,
Worthy of their sires!
Men who never shame their mothers,
Men who never fail their brothers,
True, however false are others.
Give us men! I say again,
Give us men!
"Give us men!
Men who, when the tempest gathers,
Grasp the standard of their fathers
In the thickest of the fight;
Men who strike for home and altar
(Let the coward cringe and falter),
God defend the right!
True as truth, though lorn and lonely,
Tender, as the brave are only;
Men who tread where saints have trod,
Men for country and for God.
Give us men! I say again, again,
Give us such men!"
— The Bishop of Exeter.
107
CHAPTER VI
The Education of Ministers for Service
in Rural Churches
By George Frederick Wells, B. S., B. D.,
Pastor of the Federated Church of Tyringham, Mass., and Chair-
man of the Country Church Commission of the Methodist
Federation for Social Service.
Introduction. — We hold in mind throughout this
chapter a single definition of the term "rural." It
will mean the same as the term
"country," as applied to pastors,
Churches, communities, and social
problems. There are differences be-
tween the village churches and the
cross-roads churches in the open
country, but we can not descend to
hair-splitting distinctions. We will
talk about preparing ministers for
work in all communities which are,
in general, townships where two
thousand or fewer people reside, and in which agri-
cultural or agrarian life dominates. We take the
same standard as that of the Country Church article
of the "Cyclopedia of American Agriculture."1
■Bailey, L. H.: "Cyclopedia of American Agriculture," vol. IV, pp. 297-
303. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1909.
108
REV. MR. WELLS
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE
The reading of this chapter will not produce
eighty thousand fully-equipped, efficient pastors for
service in rural churches. Neither will it furnish the
knowledge, vision, and moral incentive with which a
corps of teachers, in a special university department,
might train even a small number of country pastors.
It has seemed better to state the outstanding char-
acteristics of a- well-trained rural minister than to
tabulate in full detail the course of studies which
should be pursued in gaining them. This chapter,
therefore, expresses something of an ideal which has
not been attained. So far as possible, however, the
methods, as well as the ideal, are presented.
The importance of such a study as this can not
be overestimated. There are, in this country alone,
about eighty thousand rural pastors who need every
available educational aid. But this is not all. In
the Methodist Episcopal Church, for instance, there
are five hundred district superintendents, nearly every
one of whom is responsible for some manner of over-
head leadership or general administration of rural par-
ishes. There are fully two thousand more men in
other denominations who have similar responsibil-
ities, for which special instruction and training is
urgently desired and demanded. The criticism of our
colleges and theological seminaries for their failure at
the point of rural-mindedness is not more intense than
is the desire of all these schools to meet this great
need.
The Scholastic Training of the Rural Minister in
Outline. — By what training shall a minister be pre-
109
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
pared for service in rural Churches? Whether his
gifts incline him to the standards of scholarship or of
practical efficiency, he should, in common with all
ministers, have a high-school education, including
Latin, one or two modern languages, Greek, the
sciences, mathematics, history, and English ; he should
have a liberal education at college, including eco-
nomics and sociology, philosophy, the natural sci-
ences, history, literature, and the modern languages;
and he should have a theological seminary education,
including Hebrew and Greek; systematic, practical,
and historical theology, pedagogy, and religious and
social institutions, movements, and problems. This,
in general, should represent the standard for the rural
as well as for the urban minister. There is no reason
why we should not have country ministers ranking
with the great city ministers of our day as national
leaders.
Any young man with a clear call to the ministry,
and with ordinary gifts of personality, common-
sense, and religious idealism, may supplement this
native material in such a way as to be reasonably
sure of success in the rural parish. This supple-
mentary education may be described under the fol-
lowing heads:
1. A standard philosophy of rural improvement.
2. Catholicity of acquaintance with the rural
movement.
3. Rural-mindedness.
4. An invincible purpose and enthusiasm for
rural spiritualization.
110
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE
1. A Standard Philosophy of Rural Improvement
The first thing which ministers need to learn as
a part of their preparation for service in rural Churches
is a standard philosophy of country life improvement
from the point of view of the Church. If possible,
each man should know the ultimate philosophy of
the question. No one has a perfect philosophy of
human life in general; much less have we arrived at
perfection in the discovery of a perfect philosophy of
rural social improvement. Other things equal, how-
ever, a minister's success will be according to his
mastery of the best possible philosophy of his work.
The fearful limitations of the rural Churches of the
South are largely due to their limited ideal and
philosophy of work. Hardly more than one-seventh
of the program, which the best philosophy of the
subject demands, is now practiced.
The following dialogue exhibits the outlook of
two country ministers with differing philosophies. It
is given entire to show the practical value of a knowl-
edge of the complete cycle of the social development
of a Church in community life:
"Have you," I asked of one of two resi-
dent pastors in a small country community, "a pro-
gram of constructive work for your Church and
parish?"
"Just what do you mean by that question?"
"You are a pastor," I explained, "you are ex-
pected to fill your pulpit, lead your prayer-meetings,
call upon your people, and bury your dead. Custom
leads you in those things. But in what things do you
111
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
lead? Have you not an ideal which you are working
out? What is your constructive program?"
"O yes, I have my ideal," he replied. "I don't
believe in preaching higher criticism or science. I
believe in the gospel and try to get other people to
believe it. When they are ready to join the Church,
I want them to join my Church. If they do n't
choose my Church, I try to get them to join some
other Church. That is the broader way. I believe
in building up the Church. What is the minister for,
if not to build up his Church?"
"That is good. But how would you build up
your Church? The modern farmer knows that
nitrogen, potash, phosphoric acid, and lime properly
applied will build up his meadows to any desired
fertility. The minister can buikl up his Church and
parish by his own personal leadership, by evangelism
of the right kinds, by Church co-opera ticn, cr federa-
tion, if he has a neighboring Church with which to
work, and by social service. Social service is of two
kinds. The Church may work through the Grange,
the schools, and the Young Men's Christian Associa-
tion, by co-operation; or by more direct institutional
work with special social features in the country."
"But I don't believe in institutional work.
That 's what 's killing the other Church."
"Do you mean the Nature Club and the Knights
of King Arthur?" I asked.
"That 's just what I mean, and the Young Men's
Christian Association, too. None of the fellows in
that boys' club go to church very much as I can sec.
112
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE
They just go to the club for a good time, and that is
the end of it."
"Do the same boys go to church less than before
the club began to interest them? Has the club
harmed the boys?"
11 I do n't know as it has done any harm. There 's
nothing religious about the whole thing. The boys'
club claims to be fair, but it has only two of our
boys. The Nature Club elects only the persons they
want for members. That County Young Men's
Christian Association won't amount to anything. It 's
all run by one or two. In fact, the other minister is
run by one man."
"Do you think so?" was my response. "I was
talking with that very man about that matter. I
said that as a minister I was not dictated to by my
members, and he said that he would not be, either.
Now, the paster of the other Church," I had to say,
"is not ruled by any of his members. Instead, he
has a program cf work for the whole community.
He could n't be a worthy minister without having
just that. You have leaders in your Church whom
you might direct, if your ideal were big enough. The
other minister is just as religious as you are, and he
is something besides. He seeks to minister to the
whole life cf his people. The County Young Men's
Christian Association is nothing if it is not re-
ligious. You need to keep in touch with it. It is
trying to do the things you leave undone. The
same with the Knights cf King Arthur and the
Queens of Avalon. The Queens of Avalon arc cer-
8 113
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
tainly fair to you. The three leaders are one from
each of the Churches."
"Yes, they are three Sunday school teachers."
"You see the other minister's program," I ex-
plained. "You should have your program. In your
program you should not seek to do the things he can
do better than you. There should be as many things
you can do better than he. You should be friendly
to talk over the needs of the whole field and to sup-
ply them, if you could. Do n't you need co-operation
in your plans?"
"But you know I do n't believe in federation," he
said. "I was talking this matter over with a brother
at my out appointment. He said he did n't see how
we could federate, because we had nothing to feder-
ate with. Most all the workers in prayer-meetings
throughout the country, whatever Church they are
in now, were converted at our altars. And I think
he 's about right. I do n't see as we have anything
in this town to federate with."
Breadth of Vision and Training Needed. — There is
not a country pastor in America who does not have
a philosophy concerning his work. In most cases it
is very inadequate and one-sided. There are but few
specialists on rural improvement who have a philos-
ophy and practical program which can "go on all-
fours."
Not long ago, in a lecture at a country-life con-
ference, a program for country Churches, which had
been worked out as a product of experience, as well
as by the aid of the scientific method, was presented.
114
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE
It gave in detail the seven group stages of the fully-
matured country Church. After the lecture every
cne who shared in the cpen conference virtually said :
"That program is theory. We care nothing about
theory. What we want in solving the country Church
problem is something practical. I have had experi-
ence. This is my experience as to how to get the
thing done practically." He proceeded to state the
things which he had done, cr knew needed doing. In
every case, without exception, these men who criti-
cised the theory did nothing more nor less than to
give small portions of theory that were identical with
some section or portion of the program outlined, and
that had been worked out by sociological methods on
the basis of thousands cf experiments and observa-
tions of actual instances. Their criticisms tended
only to prove the truth of the program they sought to
obliterate. It measured the limitations of their own
ideas on the subject, and proved beyond question that
the value of work is determined by the philosophy of
it. It takes more than a single stone to make a mosaic.
It is not sufficient here to point out the need with-
out showing a way to meet it. How may a minister
secure a thorough knowledge cf a standard philosophy
of rural improvement? Some leaders would say that
the theological seminaries should furnish this instruc-
tion. For instance, Dr. Warren H. Wilson has said:
"Behind the country Churches stand the theo-
logical seminaries; professional schools, founded and
established for the training cf ministers — originally,
country ministers. At the present time these schools,
115
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
with almost no exception, are rendering an entirely
inadequate service. More than inadequate; it is
misplaced, and has the effect of misdirection. For
three years the student for the ministry is detained
away from the study which he should pursue, and for
a good part of that time he is diligently trained in
studies that he ought never to follow. The country
community, therefore, is' a field, in the case of most
ministers, for original investigation — untrained, ama-
teur, and unsystematic investigation — in which he
has no help from those appointed to be his helpers
and his leaders. For the reconstruction of the theo-
logical seminary, the sociological analysis of the
country community is of the greatest value. It should
be a special topic to which for a long time to come
almost unlimited hours should be devoted in the
seminaries, because rural sociology is of initial con-
cern to him who would understand the American
population and minister to the need of the whole
American people."1
But this does not fully answer the question. The-
ology in the equipment of the minister is more essen-
tial than sociology. Though it is not impossible for
the seminaries to furnish the necessary technical and
laboratory courses in rural sociology, there is a better
way to meet the demand. Not only should sociology,
both scientific and practical, be covered in one's col-
lege course, but rural sociology, both general and
applied, should largely be covered as a part of the
college curriculum. Full courses in rural economics
1 American Journal of Sociology, March, 1911.
116
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE
and sociology should be as much a part of the train-
ing of every man — the lawyer, the physician, the
teacher, the merchant, and the farmer — who is to
live and serve within the field of rural America, as
much as of the minister. The courses of sociology
which may well serve in the education of rural leaders
are such as President Kenyon L. Butterfield outlines
in his article, "Rural Sociology as a College Dis-
cipline.2 For the country minister, this may be sup-
plemented by a special theological seminary course
in the philosophy of rural social improvement by the
Church.
2. Catholicity of Acquaintance with the Rural Movement
The second great thing that ministers should get
to prepare themselves for rural work is a catholicity
of information and acquaintance concerning the needs,
resources, and progress of the movement for rural
improvement. As far as this is a matter of informa-
tion, it can be secured largely from the literature of
country life. It is very much to the credit cf some of
our religious periodicals that they present lists of the
best reading matter en the subject of the country
Church and country life. This work needs to go
very much further and be kept up-to-date by some
central agency. In fact, there is need at the present
time for a comprehensive bibliography on the sub-
ject of the country Church and country life. The
theological and public libraries have not done all that
they might in providing country life book-shelves.
2 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March,
1912, pp. 12-18, Philadelphia.
117
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
This phase of social service needs to be carried for-
ward speedily.
Our country life conferences ought very soon to
include in their programs lectures on the literary side
of the movement. We are beginning to urge the de-
mand for at least one institution in the United States
which shall have a special department of studies for
the preparation of ministers for work in rural fields.
One leading country pastor, for instance, has wisely
said : "I am going to outline what seems to me to
be indispensably necessary, lying ahead of the de-
nominations in America that are at all prominent in
the support of Churches in villages and country par-
ishes. It is that interdenominational divinity schools
be located and provided with faculties, curricula,
and rural environment for study and specialization
of different country life problems. We must have a
rural ministry, dignified, modern, thoroughly trained,
and fully abreast of the constructive, broad-minded
agencies which are promoting more general phases of
social service. Am I not right in thinking that our
rural ministry to-day is in urgent need of vocational
training, and that we should have seminaries of learn-
ing equipped with proper experiment station facilities
for gospel work in the open country and in hamlets
and villages? Where is the prominent divinity school
in this land that so much as knows what the open
country and our villages are starving for, or that is
not located where the big city atmosphere so per-
vades the whole student body that its members are
unfitted more than fitted for country work?"
118
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE
Such a department should include, as one of its
courses, a course on country life bibliography. There
are at the present time more than fifty books which,
in a special way, belong to the literature of the
country life movement. Some of these treat of the
Church and religious phases of the question; a larger
number, perhaps, concern themselves with the country
school and the educational phases of the movement;
many treat of economics and local government, while
a few have the comprehensive social point of view.
These books do not comprise by any means the best
or the most important portion of rural literature.
Many pamphlets, reports, and periodical articles are
of great value. No country minister should be satis-
fied to consider himself prepared for his work until
he has a familiarity with the best of this material.
The course on bibliography should be supple-
mented by a course on religious and social propa-
ganda, which should take up comparative studies of
rural religious movements, methods, and progress.
3. Rural-Mindedness
The third phase of the country minister's educa-
tion consists of his getting the point of view of rural
life. He must be rural-minded. This does not mean
that he must have the odor of the farm dairy and use
the language of uneducated lumbermen. It does
mean that he shall know enough of American national
life to distinguish between its urban and rural factors,
tendencies, and ideals; and that he shall be able to
appreciate and to promote all that is best in rural
119
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
civilization. His conversations and attitudes should
express the spirit and capacity of rural leadership.
It may be asked if any one born outside of the
country should ever expect to consider himself quali-
fied for work in rural pastorates. Some would say,
Absolutely no. I would net thus answer the question.
It is true that under existing educational condi-
tions the most available portion of the training cf
many men for rural pastorates is that received en
farms previous to attending high-school. That
eighty per cent of all the ministers in this country
are born and reared outside cf the cities, is strong
evidence that rural environment means much in the
making of ministers. But it does not mean everything.
The qualities of personal leadership, whatever the
habitat, mean more in the equipment of a minister
than any accident of boyhood surroundings. It would
be as sensible to say that all city ministers shall be
city-born as that all rural ministers shall be rural-
born. The man who can not orient himself in rural
life would not be worth while as a country minister,
had his nativity been in the densest forest on the
continent. It happens to-day that several of the
most successful country pastors are graduates from
city and town pulpits. No man is acceptably edu-
cated for the social ministries of the modern Church,
either in city or country, who does not know American
civilization as a whole. We learn some things by
contrasts. John Frederic Oberlin was a city product.
Rural-mindedness may be acquired.
This question is not so simple as it may appear.
120
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE^
The great curse of the rural community to-day is the
urban-mindedness of the individuals who comprise
it. It is this condition that has created the rural
problem. The average country minister's ideal of
success is his graduation from rural into town and
city pulpits. Such a spirit should not exist. The
most strenuous and effective educational work pos-
sible is required to correct the evil. If this can be
aided by birthright rural-mindedness on the part of
our candidates for the rural ministry, so much the
better. Our country ministers must work because
they love and believe in their work as a contribution
to the rural civilization, without which the nation as
a whole must fail.
Shall Rural Ministers Receive Agricultural College
Training? — The second question in this relation is
as to whether the country minister should have a
portion of his schooling in an agricultural college.
Ex-Governor Brewer, of Pennsylvania, expressed
one view of the question when he said :
"The trouble with the country minister is that
he does net know how to farm. The old-style preach-
ers could farm and did farm. They taught their
people how to farm the land. The theological semi-
naries should so train the minister that he would
know how to bore a hole in the ground and see whether
that spot would do for the planting of a Baldwin
apple-tree."
Doctor Warren H. Wilson, in the following state-
ments, more than balances the Governor's notion:
"Modern life demands the service of specialists,
121
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
but to specialize in agriculture does not prepare a
man to serve in theology. If the minister can get
no other specialty than agriculture, he had better
serve the community as a scientific farmer, and be
done with it. The modern minister is to serve not
vegetables, but men. His specialty must be not the
chemistry of soils nor animal husbandry, but he is to
be a master of social science, because the ministry
demanded of him is a social ministry to human beings.
Unless one is willing to call country people vegetables,
he should not think that scientific agriculture will be
the preparation for serving them."
"It is not the province of the Church," says
Doctor Wilbert L. Anderson, "to teach directly the
new agriculture, but rather to awaken the mind of
the farmer, and arouse in him the spirit of idealism
so that he will seek the new agricultural knowledge.
The Church will say to the farmer, Cultivate your
farm in the better way to make the most of your
opportunity, to find the highest zest in your occupa-
tion, and to glorify your calling. As country minis-
ters, you will know less of farming in detail than your
parishioners, but you should know more than they
of the spirit of progress."
For service in rural Churches our ministers need,
and should, as far as possible, avail themselves of the
educational advantages of our best agricultural col-
leges. In no other way can they place themselves
abreast of the best in the rural world which it is their
business to idealize. Our agricultural colleges train
men for rural leadership; not to be mere manipulators
122
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE
of vegetables, farm implements, animals, and mar-
kets. No colleges and no departments of our Amer-
ican universities come nearer to solving the problem
of educating men for modern life than do the agri-
cultural colleges. If they are. not so well adapted for
the particular task of training men for rural social
and spiritual statesmanship as are some other schools,
their spirit of progress is capable of speedily making
them so. The era of co-operation between the theo-
logical seminaries and the agricultural colleges, we
trust, will soon begin to render to the world of the
farmer, which even now counts its wealth at fcrty
billion dollars, its proper plan of moral leadership in
our national life, which is both earned and deserved.
The agricultural colleges of to-day are pre-eminently
the educational nurseries and kindergartens of the
rural civilization, and without their dominating spirit
no minister can know the world which he is intended
to serve. The farmers' school and the farmers'
Church must co-operate.
4. An Invincible Purpose and Enthusiasm for Rural
Spiritualization
It has been observed that one of the largest ele-
ments that enters into the experience of an agri-
cultural college education for the country ministry
is that of personal purpose. It may possibly be said
that a person will gain success in spite of, rather than
because of, his agricultural training. Such a conclu-
sion can not be based upon the facts. One thing is
sure: The average college and theological seminary
123
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
of our day has the point of view of training for town
and city work. They are schools located in large
towns and cities, with professors who are drawn from
successful city pastorates, and offering to graduates,
as rewards, the better pulpits of town and city. It
is unquestionably true that the young man who fol-
lows the conventional training for the ministry, but
who aims for the rural pastorate, must have an over-
mastering purpose to enable him not to be harmed
by the means used if he reaches the goal.
There is an ethical factor that must not be omitted
from any man's preparation for the country ministry.
It matters not how highly-developed and universally-
valid may be one's philosophy of rural improvement,
how catholic one's information and acquaintance with
the large rural movement, or how intimate may be
one's touch with the conditions cf rural populations,
if a person does not have a purpose adequate to make
him do the work of the best possible rural pastor, his
other equipments will go for naught so far as country
life is concerned.
We face an educational problem. It is not a ques-
tion alone of what the rural preacher ought to have
in order to succeed in building up the rural com-
munity, but of how we can develop and inspire in
him the requisite determination.
In his book, "Religious Life in America," Ernest
Hamlin Abbott tells cf a certain young minister who
went directly from the theological seminary into a
lumber town of New Hampshire. 'There, under the
auspices of the missionary society of his denomina-
124
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE
tion," says Mr. Abbott, "he organized a Church.
Highly educated, he devoted his mental acquirements
to the improvement of the town schools. Athletic,
he used his physique in compelling the disorderly
element in the population to respect, if not wholly
to obey the laws. Bred in the lumber regions, he
helped to cut the wood for the church building he
succeeded in erecting. Broad in his sympathies and
interests, he included in his church building a reading-
room and gymnasium. Distrustful of traditionalism,
he did not hesitate to make his preaching and teach-
ing accord with modern knowledge. Strongly evan-
gelical in temperament, he drew people into the
Church by the earnestness with which he declared
his faith in the power of his crucified and risen Master,
Christ. At the end of a few years — perhaps some half-
dozen — he had transformed that community. But
he had given his life. From sheer exhaustion he died,
broken down in health and mind, a vicarious sacrifice
for the people he had served."
It will take more than the relating of such in-
stances to produce the desired result. It is good,
however, for us to note at least the direction in which
the ideal lies. That one man had the purpose is
better still. It shows us that the ideal is true.
Suggestions on the Solution of the Educational
Problem. — There are two suggestions that may aid
in gaining the desired educational end in far wider
measure. It is true, as Dr. Henry Wallace has said,
that we can have no organized country Church move-
ment to-day, because we do not have a sufficient
125
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
number of leaders. The task is to use the resources
at hand in developing them; or, to create new agen-
cies for the specific training of rural religious leaders
in the denominational schools and theological sem-
inaries.
Much is being written relative to social survey
work in rural communities. We recognize that the
best work along these lines can not be done until the
theological seminaries or the agricultural colleges
greatly increase what ma}7 be called laboratory fa-
cilities. The average country minister to-day is
unable to make an adequate social survey of his
field, even though he has placed in his hands a guide
for such work. No country pastor can meet the de-
mands for social engineering who can not diagnose
the social situation with which he has to deal.
Departments of rural life should be established in
connection with the best theological seminaries and
denominational colleges, particularly those not lo-
cated in large cities. In addition to courses in rural
sociology, there should be courses in the science and
art of general agriculture, rural home-making, rural
economics, pedagogics in rural religious teaching, and
rural Church administration.
Another suggestion is that larger attention be
given to the formation of an inclusive and centrally-
organized country-life movement in the United
States.3 The Country Life Commission, appointed
3 A very promising organization for carrying forward the great rural life
movement in this country under the leadership of college men is the Col'egiate
Country Life Club of America. Copies of the constitution and by-laws for
local chapters may be secured for ten cents from the National Secretary, Prof.
A. W. Nolan, Urbana, III.
126
EDUCATION OF MINISTERS FOR SERVICE
by President Roosevelt, was a fair suggestion of what
rural America needs. Sir Horace Plunkett's "The
Rural Life Problem of the United States," is another
contribution on this subject. Such an agency will be
able to concentrate the forces of education for the
training of a mighty class of rural ministers and
leaders for the Churches on American soil, who shall
lead, rather than follow, in the upward march of
rural betterment.
127
CHAPTER VII
The Principles of Apperception and
Association in Rural Religious
Teaching
By Garland A. Bricker.
1. The Principle of Apperception
A farmer looks over his billowing field of wheat
with a source of great satisfaction, for to him it rep-
resents the reward of his labors — food for his family
and money for his bank account. The grain dealer
drives past the same field and is delighted with the
prospect; to him it means a source of supply for his
elevator. , The sight of the waving grain puts hope
and gladness into the heart of the community thrasher;
he knows it will be a good job for him and his men.
The botanist observes what perfect specimens cf
the wheat plant are in that field, and plucks a few
clumps of the queen of grasses for his herbarium. The
minister is touched with the wonderful sight and
praises God, "For how great is His goodness, and how
great His beauty! grain shall make the young men
flourish." To him it represents infinite wisdom, great
bounty, and tender care.
All five men beheld the same wheat-field, but
each saw something different. Each received a new
128
APPERCEPTION AND ASSOCIATION
thought, a new inspiration, a new perception in
terms of his past experience, or in accordance with
his habit of life. Each man, then, apperceived the
wheat-field according to his own personality. Apper-
ception, as the term is used in psychology and in the
science and art of teaching, is the perception of new
things in relation to the ideas which we already
possess.
The Application of the Principle. — A little girl of
the city, who had an acquaintance with dogs, visited
in the country and, for the first time in her life, saw
a pig. She called it a fat puppy. The idea of closest
similarity to the pig that the child possessed was
that of a pup; and hence she apperceived accord-
ingly.
Men come to think in terms of their habits of
life. A business man thinks in terms of dollars and
cents; a musician, in terms of harmonious tones; an
artist, in terms of curves and colors; a preacher, in
terms of the gospel he preaches; and, likewise, the
farmer, in terms of his life in the country, his daily
associations, and his environment. The farmer labors
with the natural materials of the farm, field, and
forest. The moods of Nature furnish the conditions
in accordance with which he must labor and by which
he is bound; the soil, the plants, and the animals are
the crude materials with which he builds his fame;
his weapons of warfare are the plow, the drill, the
cultivator, the harvester, and similar implements and
machines; and back of all these and over them all is
his own might of physical force and the power of
9 129
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
knowledge concerning his science and art. The
farmer's habit of life is agricultural, and his thoughts
are inseparably bound up with it. He sees new
things through agricultural eyes, and apperceives new
thoughts through his farm ideas.
The rural minister of the gospel has here a great
opportunity and a plain duty. His parishioners are
farmers; their thoughts, their habits, their lives are
all formed in accord with the environing influences
under which they serve mankind and their God.
Business, recreation, and education, to succeed, must
come to them in terms of rural life and agricultural
experience. Why not religion? It must; and the re-
ligion that had its origin among the pastoral people
may be preached with peculiar force to an agri-
cultural population.
The minister of the country Church must teach
his people Christian truths in terms of the farm. He
will need a new stock of similes and metaphors. His
illustrations should be drawn from the common ex-
perience of rural people. The message will not lose
its efficacy when transmitted by means of grain, hay,
cattle, milk, butter, separators, silos, incubators,
chickens, eggs, wagons, horses, feed, plows, soil,
mulch, fertilizers, insecticides, insects, plant diseases,
fruits, farm insurance, failure of crops, etc. These
are the natural, material things that form the point
of contact between the farmer and the spiritual
world. The rural minister that will compare a sinner
to a sour soil, a backslider to a run-down orchard,
and a revival to the renovation of such an orchard by
130
APPERCEPTION AND ASSOCIATION
pruning, spraying, and grafting, will not be misunder-
stood by his people.
Factors Influencing Teaching by Apperception. —
The more ideas one has on any subject or department
of knowledge, the more readily will he be able to
learn new ideas, either in the same department or in
a different sphere of similar ideas. For this reason
new ideas make the slowest progress among ignorant
A BACKSLIDER
people. Those that have much may readily acquire
more, but those who have little make acquisitions
slowly, and are in danger of losing even that which
they already possess. The principle is as true in the
realm of ideas as in the physical and commercial
worlds. The more a farmer knows about scientific
agriculture, the more readily may he understand
principles new to him. The more ideas he has about
agricultural science and practice, the more readily
131
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
will he grasp new religious ideas that have a similarity
to his stock of agricultural ideas.
The greatest stock of ideas that rural people
possess is concerned with rural life, particularly as
found on the farm. The sum of these ideas forms the
basis by which they grasp new ideas, and conditions
their quickest and best thinking. Country people
will grasp the significance of a religious idea more
quickly and more easily if it is presented to them in
terms of rural life. To present a new idea to a rural
audience in terms of any other profession than farm-
ing, lessens the probability that it will be thoroughly
grasped, because the basis of apperception of country
people is made up very largely of farm ideas. On
this account, the illustrations used in religious teach-
ing in rural communities, whether in the Sunday
school or the pulpit, should be distinctly rural.
In order that his parishioners may the more
readily grasp the meaning of religious truths by en-
larging the point of contact between agricultural
ideas and religious ideas, the rural minister will find
it desirable not only to encourage the study and teach-
ing of agriculture among his people, but he may even
find it necessary to incidentally teach facts of hus-
bandry direct from his pulpit during religious services
and in connection with his sermon. An enlargement
of the agricultural knowledge of the people means an
enlargement of opportunities to make conscious ap-
perceptive teaching effective.
Men learn those things most easily in which they
are most interested; but interest is conditioned upon
132
APPERCEPTION AND ASSOCIATION
the quality and the quantity of ideas already in the
mind. Other things equal, the potentiality of ideas
and their numerousness enhance interest. But on
these conditions is also based the efficiency of apper-
ception. So we see that interest and apperception
function under similar conditions and along the same
lines. Now, the farmer and his family are very in-
tensely interested in agriculture, because out of this
sphere of human activity the majority of their ideas
and experiences have come. If the apperceptive
factor is to be used most effectively by the country
preacher, he must of necessity use the ideas, the facts,
the principles, the laws, and the practices of agri-
culture.
It is assumed in this discussion that the rural
minister possesses no mean training in agriculture.
Indeed, he needs to know a little more about the
science of agriculture and its application than does
the average farmer of his congregation. In many
communities the live and talented minister may pos-
sibly attain to this standard through reading and
careful and frequent observation. Attendance at the
farmers' short course, or the summer session of a col-
lege or university where agriculture is taught for the
purpose of further acquainting himself with this
science and art, should yield ample reward for the
sacrifice. Indeed, the time has arrived when, as a
condition of preaching in the rural church, the min-
ister should be required to possess a certain amount
of agricultural knowledge. The seminaries and de-
nominational schools should awaken to their duty
133
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
and opportunity of offering at least one course
throughout one year in the elementary principles of
general agriculture, as well as briefer courses in rural
sociology and rural economics.
2. The Principle of Association
The association of ideas is another principle of
psychology. It has reference to the power of repre-
sentation— memory. One thought causes another to
come into consciousness, because they have been
associated in the mind. One thought suggests an-
other. The association of ideas by the mind may be
due to several distinct causes.
One of the most potential causes of the associa-
tion of ideas is because of likeness and contrast. My
mention of the idea, "cross," brings to the mind of
one of my readers the idea, "Christ;" but to another,
who has been recently studying the Moslem faith,
the idea, "crescent." These ideas are associated by
the law of correlation, as we call it; i. e., by discerned
likeness or contrast. The rural minister who com-
pares the little, alluring sins of life to the attractive
butterflies or moths, and then shows, by developing
the life history of the insect, what great and ugly de-
stroyers they may really become, establishes for me
a similarity which I shall not soon forget. The com-
parison might well go on to show the best time for
exterminating the insects and the sins, the results of
carelessness, and the reward of watchfulness. A
mention of the methods to be used in each case would
probably not be amiss. Whenever I see a codling
134
APPERCEPTION AND ASSOCIATION
moth, I think of the little, enticing sins that my
pastor has made him to represent. When I spray
my apple-trees with arsenate-of-lead solution and
thus lay the basis at exactly the right time for the
destruction of this pest, I remember how my spiritual
father has impressed me with the necessity of taking
precaution at the right time against the pests of life.
Another law of association is that of emotional
preference. Ideas of things are associated in our minds
because they agree with our natural preferences; they
either please or displease, attract or repel us. If I
am especially interested in dairy cattle, and the
preacher speaks of the best balanced ration for dairy
cows for the purpose of making an illustration of how
each Christian meeds a balanced supply of religious
teaching, in order to become most efficient as a Chris-
tian citizen, he receives my very closest attention
and holds it. In the future, when I consider balanced
rations for my cows, and whenever the idea is men-
tioned, by emotional preference, I will also think of
the minister's idea of a balanced religious manna,
and whether I am giving due consideration to my
spiritual feeling.
The Principle of Association in Operation. — If two
or more ideas are presented to us and so associated
as to arouse our emotional preference, or, by point-
ing out likenesses or contrasts, we are apt to associate
aU the ideas the next time we think of any one of
them. This process of associating the same ideas
may occur so frequently as to become a mental
habit. The good minister compares temptation with
135
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
storms, and a human being with an oak tree. From
a seedling to its majestic matured life, the storms
have beaten against that tree; but with the passing
of each storm the oak sent its roots deeper and deeper
into the earth, securing a surer anchorage as time
passed on. The tree never once yielded, and to-day
he stands the monarch of the forest, majestic in his
strength and purity. A failure to anchor securely
upon a sure foundation year by year, day by day,
would have brought destruction and death to the
tree during some terrific storm. But there he stands
ready to overcome any storm likely to sweep his
native forest. The next day the good man's parish-
ioners go to their usual
toil in the fields. There
stands an oak. How
majestic! No storm
can lower him; he has
taken sure anchorage.
Ah, here stand I in the
midst of the tempests
of sin! Am I surely
and securely anchored
like yon oak? The as-
sociation rings true —
the message has been
reawakened by the
sight of the oak. Every
time I behold an oak
tree, the spiritual idea returns: the two are insep-
arably linked together, because of the association of
136
"AM I SURELY AND SECURELY
ANCHORED LIKE YON OAK?"
APPERCEPTION AND ASSOCIATION
ideas. They have re-occurred in my mind so often
that the association of oak tree and constancy in
Christian living has become a habit of thought. The
sermon is re-preached each time an oak tree, standing
or lowly laid, comes to sight or consciousness. The
good minister taught me in terms of my experience,
my apperceptive basis was such as to enable me to
get the full force of the truth he taught and associate
it in my mind with an idea perfectly familiar to me.
The association has become fixed in my life as a
habit of thought, and its power affords one of the
chief anchors projected into the world of the In-
finite.
The rural minister has a wonderful opportunity
of co-operating with Nature to inculcate moral and
Christian teaching. Every object in nature, and
especially on the farm, should reflect or suggest the
Creator or one or more of His attributes to the
countryman. By linking agricultural facts and rural
objects inseparably with religious truths, the preacher
of the country Church may accomplish this thing.
Every object in the farmer's environment will thus
come to have a religious significance. Every member
of the rural Church will come to see that
for
"Earth is crammed with Heaven.
And every bush afire with God."
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."
"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks
Sermons in stones, and good in everything."
137
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
With these constant and powerful admonitions to
righteous living, the farmer, among all men, should
be the most religious.
LOST
A SUGGESTIVE SERMON OUTLINE
Subject: Resistance to Temptation.
Temptation to sin comes from two sources — our-
selves and our fellows.
The two sources of temptation to sin may be com-
pared with the two sources of plant destruction, viz.,
insect pests and plant diseases. Plant diseases are
the temptations that arise from within; insect pests,
the temptations coming from without.
To protect fruit trees, there must be constant and
thorough spraying. Watchfulness and persistence are
needed on the part of the farmer. So with tempta-
138
APPERCEPTION AND ASSOCIATION
tion to sin; the soul must ever be persistently watch-
ful. No one knows when the germs, the insects, or
the temptations may come. It behooves us to be
ever ready.
There must be no playing with sin. It will not do
to put off spraying; that must be done in its season.
So with our fortification against sin.
There is a remedy for each plant disease or foe;
likewise, a grace that makes us immune to every
temptation.
By spraying, the farmer secures an abundance of
superior fruit; one wTho keeps free from sin will also
bear more and better fruit. Late spraying may save
the tree, but lose the fruit; so with fortification
against sin — it may come too late, and while the person
may be saved, the good works that he might have
done will be lost.
The whole tree must be sprayed; the whole life
must be consecrated. One place unguarded leaves a
vulnerable point.
But there is a difference in the analogy. In Chris-
tianity there is one remedy for all the diseases of
sin; in agriculture there is no such universal remedy
for plant disease and insect pests. Each disease or
pest has, as a rule, its specific remedy.
This emphasizes the simplicity of Christianity —
one remedy for all sin — Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
139
CHAPTER VIII
The Agricultural College and the
Country Church
By William Oxley Thompson, D. D., LL. D.,
President of Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
1. Primitive Condition
The person whose memory goes back to the
middle of the nineteenth century will recall a vivid
picture of community life quite in
contrast with anything he is now
able to see. The residents of the
rural communities in Western Penn-
sylvania and Eastern Ohio at that
period were either the original set-
tlers, or their children who had
cleared up the farms and laid the
foundations for whatever commu-
nity life existed. Many of these
people, like my grandfather, had
built their houses from the trees felled on their own
farms. The building of a log house or a barn was, in
great measure, a community enterprise in which the
neighbors joined, led by a few skilled workmen who
directed the activities. The extinct long shingle, or
140
PRES'T THOMPSON
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
clapboard, and a little later the shorter shingle, were
split and shaved out of the choicest oak trees found
on the farm. This was an activity practically every
farmer engaged in for himself. If he was not able to
make his own shingles, he could, by exchange of
service, secure them without much cash outlay.
The first and second generation of these people
were compelled to co-operate in order to build their
homes, their schools, their churches, and oftentimes
to harvest their crops. We should not lose sight of
the fact that these men were farmers before the days
of rapid transit cr cf modern machinery. The writer
has helped to tramp wheat en the barn floor and to
clean it with the wind-mill before the days cf the
"bunty" machine, which was nothing more than a
cylinder set with spikes to separate the wheat from
the straw, as a substitute for tramping it cut with
horses. The community flour mill, operated by water
power, was one of the primitive industries serving the
needs of the people without competition and without
any such an organization as may be found at present
in great railway centers. The topography cf the
country lent itself readily to what may be termed
community groups. Villages grew up as trading
centers in these communities, and sometimes became
the religious, commercial, and educational centers for
considerable areas. These early communities were cf
necessity local in much of their life. The elementary
school is always a local institution, and being at that
time almost the only school, every community had
its own local educational activities. In a large num-
141
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
ber of these communities the settlements were made
by people of similar antecedents — the Scotch-Irish,
the Dutch, the Irish, the Germans — and hence
readily lent themselves to the development of the
local Church. Eastern Ohio had its Quaker centers
and Presbyterian centers, and Pennsylvania just as
distinctly had its Quaker communities, its Lutheran
communities, its United Presbyterian centers, and a
variety of others. In those days the means of trans
portation, for a large portion of the State, were con-
fined to such roads as primitive communities could
afford or provide, and therefore people were disposed
to cluster about the same institutions. The singing-
school and the party were community affairs. A
wedding frequently brought a social event at the
home of the bride, and the "infair" brought another
at the home of the groom. There were no distinct
lines of social cleavage, for the evident reason that
the industries of the community included people of
similar religious and social antecedents. In many of
these segregated communities the religious and social
life clustered about the Church more than about any
ether activity.
2. Agencies of Transformation
The conditions characteristic of a community in
the early stages of these settlements and development
could not long continue. The increase of wealth, the
development of political life, the improvement of
transportation, and the advent of the steam railroad
steadily transformed the industrial activities and
142
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
made the growth of centers of population inevitable.
More than any other factor, it is probable that the
improved means of transportation has brought the
country to town and made the town the center of re-
ligious and educational life. Here it was that the
stronger Churches were soon developed, and that
schools reached their better organization. The dis-
trict school, at first an institution of one or two rooms,
steadily developed into a graded school crowned with
the beginnings of the modern high-school. The old
country academy, often attached to a Church and
managed by the local pastor as its chief officer, served
two generations of the people as the outlet of their
desire for more extended education. In some places
the organization of a college by a Church furnished
both the academic and the college training, and be-
came an institution to which other academies sent
their selected students.
The country grist-mill steadily gave way to the
village flouring mill. In modern days this has given
way to the city milling company. The grandson of
the farmer who hauled his wheat to the mill and
brought back the flour, bran, and middlings, now
sells his wheat to the elevator company, buys his
flour from the village or city dealer, and his bran, if
he uses it at all, in- the general market.
The advent of the interurban railway has served
to closely connect the parents in the country with
the children in the town, and to centralize the markets
for ordinary purposes in the village. It is a common
sight now on Sunday mornings to' see the interurban
143
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
railway cars filled with young married people, taking
their children to spend the day with parents and
grandparents in the country, while the return visit
to the children in the city is a less frequent occurrence.
The village or city high-school educates the children
accessible to these inte'rurban railways, and thus
brings a considerable percentage of the country under
the direct influences of the city ideals and city prac-
tices. A majority of these children, through the
natural law of association and education, look to the
city as the place of future activity, rather than to the
country.
Drift Westward. — In the midst of the life of this
generation now under consideration, the cheaper and
richer lands of the West were opened, and a steady
migration took place. Parents in some cases sold
their farms and went Westward to buy cheaper land
and more of it, and to make provision on a larger
scale for farming. The old methods of agriculture
were steadily superseded by the newer methods,
brought about by the development of agricultural
machinery. The prairie countries started, after the
popular fashion, in developing the district school, the
country Church, and a somewhat similar life as will
be seen by reading any book such as Eggleston's
"Hoosier Schoolmaster," which gives a reasonably
accurate picture of the primitive life of the early
settlers in the prairie States. These communities
have undergone much the same transformation that
took place in the Eastern communities, modified more
rapidly by the extension of railways and the location
144
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
of Western towns almost entirely along these lines of
transportation. In the Eastern States there still re-
main segregated communities not reached by rail-
roads, but these are rapidly showing signs of decline
and decay.
At the close of the Civil War the return of the
soldiers found a new spirit in the people, and many of
them made that period the occasion to migrate to the
newer parts of the country. This took to the newer
country the larger portion of the younger men and
women, while the older country was rilled with a new
population. The better organization of coal-mining,
the discovery and development of the oil industry,
the development of manufacturing enterprises and the
allied industries brought a foreign population into
the older States quite different in character from the
original settlers. This industrial revolution produced
a rapid development in the population in many
towns, and transformed some of them into vigorous
and prosperous modern cities, oftentimes at the ex-
pense of the rural community life.
Agricultural Decline. — Two things were clearly ob-
served in the middle years of the nineteenth century,
namely, a decline in Eastern agriculture and the rapid
development cf production on the newer prairie
farms, which tended to lower the profits and change
the character of Eastern farming. We know that
profitable agriculture in these older States is depend-
ent on the intelligent application of the teachings of
agricultural science. The first two generations of
farmers were not awake to the fact that their profits
10 145
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
were due to the accumulated fertility of the centuries,
and that they made it impossible for the next gener-
ation to compete with the more fertile lands of the
West. This continually decreasing margin of profit
produced a certain discontent on the farm, for which
there seemed to be no remedy. A badly-used, run-
down farm of decreasing fertility was not in position
to encourage the hope that the improvements of the
original settlers could be replaced in such a way as
to insure the farmer a comfortable living and a reason-
able outlook for his family. A study of the statistics
now reveals the fact that large areas of Eastern farms
steadily declined in productive power. This fact,
once recognized, became a source of dissatisfaction,
and underlies the transformation which has occurred
in many agricultural districts first settled.
Agricultural Colleges. — As early as the days of
George Washington, we read warnings concerning the
decline of soil fertility. This subject was repeatedly
discussed in agricultural societies from Massachusetts
westward to Illinois. As a result of this agitation,
Mr. Justin S. Morrill, a member of Congress
from Vermont, became the exponent of the idea of
education that should develop institutions devoted to
the teachings of the sciences related to agriculture and
the mechanic arts. His bill was passed in 1857, but
vetoed and subsequently passed, and became a law
by the signature of President Lincoln in 1862. The
impetus to this movement was found among the farm-
ers of the country, who had become aroused to the
necessity of a better agriculture. Men in the cities
146
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
and men engaged in manufacturing enterprises were
quick to see that the permanent prosperity of the
country could not abide unless the progress of agri-
culture kept pace with the needs of the country.
For twenty-five years these colleges, as established
by Federal aid, addressed themselves to the teaching
of a science yet in its infancy. These years developed
the fact that no permanent improvement could be
made in the teaching of a science which was not based
upon carefully- verified experiment. As a result of
this conviction, Mr. William Henry Hatch, member
of Congress from Missouri, succeeded in securing the
passage of the Hatch Act, granting Federal aid to the
establishment of the agricultural experiment stations.
For twenty-five years these stations, by carefully-
selected experiment, have laid the foundation of a
science upon which modern agriculture is being built.
The agricultural college is teaching what the ex-
periment station has demonstrated. These institu-
tions have covered the entire field of agriculture,
from the basis of soil fertility and soil conservation to
the production of the best types of live stock and the
scientific management of farms. It was both natural
and proper that the agricultural college should first
devote its energy to the fundamental and economic
questions related to agricultural production. Believ-
ing the soil to be the nation's endowment, the first
problem was to preserve this endowment in its per-
manent productive power. Around this important
fundamental issue has clustered all the interest and
activities of agricultural institutions.
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SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Like every other institution, the agricultural col-
lege has had its days of primitive simplicity. It had
to enter a new and untried field of education. There
were no precedents established and no landmarks by
which it could be guided. It was confronted not
only with the necessity of developing the science of
agriculture, but it had to develop competent teachers
of the subject, who were sympathetic with, and en-
thusiastic in, the farmers' problems. It met with the
inertia of unbelief and indifference. Farmers them-,
selves in many instances did not believe in "book
farming," nor did they believe that there was a science
of agriculture which could be taught. Nature was
originally so bountiful as to make men careless. The
popular belief oftentimes amounted to a prejudice
against the newer agricultural methods. The agri-
cultural college was confronted with the necessity of
demonstrating its own efficiency to an unwilling and
often unheeding constituency. It was soon discovered,
however, that agriculture, like civilization, develops
its own diseases. An impoverished soil was a more
fruitful source of plant disease than a rich soil; at
any rate, diseases were more destructive. Plant
pathology and the study of plant diseases and their
prevention and cure was practically unknown to the
generation before the Civil War. The agricultural
college, therefore, has found itself compelled to face
the problems of preserving and developing plant life,
as well as preserving the productive power of the soil.
In the realm of animal industry the same general
statements are true. The college, therefore, has come
148
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
to be regarded as an institution related to the funda-
mental, scientific, and economic problems of rural life.
New Conception of the Agricultural College. — Out
of these early experiences of the agricultural college
there has come further development of its mission in
attacking the social problems of rural life. A profit-
able industry always develops wealth and leisure fcr
the people. It opens the way to a larger participa-
tion in social and religious life. This new life develops
its problems, and just here the agricultural college
has found it important to introduce the study of
rural economics and rural sociology. Political econ-
omy in earlier history was regarded as the dismal
science, because it was presumed to deal almost ex-
clusively with the questions of values and of wealth.
Later development of political economy has shown it
to be a social science as truly as the science of wealth
production. In much the same way the field of rural
economics has expanded into the larger fields of rural
welfare. The student in the college of agriculture is
not now regarded as completely educated unless he
has an intelligent grasp of the problems of social life
in the open country. He must have a fundamental
training in political economy from the older and
narrower point of view, supplemented by the broader
view of society. These men, as they return to the
farm or engage in agricultural activities of any sort,
become the leaders in the agricultural idealism which
sets the standard for farm life. It is inevitable in
this study of social problems that the question of
recreation, amusement, and religion, and all other
149
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
community activities must have some adequate con-
sideration.
The Church as an institution has not been pre-
pared to make a study of this phase of rural life, nor
has it felt the necessity of doing so. Leaders in the
Church, including the ministers, have regarded the
Church as being exclusively a religious agency, and
have not felt the necessity of relating the industrial
and social activity with the Church. Without offense,
it may be said that Jesus, living among an agricultural
people, brought the most of His classic illustrations
from the field and the industries of the people. One
can not avoid the feeling that there was the closest
intelligence and sympathy on the p?rt of the Master
with the people whom He served. Following in His
leadership, it is of vital importance now that all the
institutions of modern society, including our teachers
in the school and our teachers in the Church, should
be able to use and apply the principles of religion to
vitalize the motives of industry, and the experiences
of our industries to illustrate the essential principles
of our religion.' As a matter of fact, in the develop-
ment of our population the city has steadily gained
ascendency, and its ideas have obtained too much
hold upon the rural population, thus tending to lower
the appreciation of the dignity of country life.
3. The Educated Ministry
The ministers most naturally represent the leader-
ship of the Church. They are the men best educated
for leadership, and to them we look most naturally
150
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
for the ideals as to what the Church should be. The
education of these ministers in modern days is largely
assigned to the theological seminary. These schools,
following the established custom, have sought to
make men efficient in a knowledge of the Scriptures,
the problems of theology, the history of the Church,
and in the preparation of the gospel message. They
have assumed, with propriety, that the underlying
education of the college should give a man the neces-
sary foundation in liberal training, including eco-
nomics and philosophy. Great problems of the
Church in evangelization have not been overlooked.
It may be said, however, without harshness, that
neither the college nor the theological seminary has
adequately comprehended the social conditions of
modern society which have made the problems of the
local Church more difficult.
The college was the first to discover the difficult
social problems arising in the city out of the develop-
ment of modern industries, and the consequent sepa-
ration between the employer and the employee. It
soon became evident that the social cleavages in the
city were making difficult the problems of the city
Church. The theological seminaries have awakened
also to this fact, and, under the general theme of city
evangelization and the city Church, have endeavored
to train the young men preparing for the ministry in
a practical application cf their education to the solu-
tion of the social and religious problems of the city.
The theological schools are to be commended in this
regard with enthusiasm.
151
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
It was but natural that the problems of rural
population should be the last to receive attention.
The tradition of the ideal life associated with the
farm persisted in the minds of many men and women
who had moved from the country to the city. In
fact, the country was not awake to the stratification
that was going on in country life. When we dis-
covered that in the States having the most profitable
agriculture there was a strong tendency toward ab-
sentee ownership and a development toward an itin-
erant renting class, the seriousness of the situation
dawned. In many States practically fifty per cent of
the farms are now owned by city residents, and are
operated by renters with but frequently one year
of tenure. This has introduced into every rural
community an unstable class of citizens, who can not
be relied upon to build schools, churches, or com-
munity life. Moreover, the easier methods of trans-
portation make it possible now for a considerable
percentage of the rural population to identify itself
with the religious and social life in the town or city.
When we also remember that in States like Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa the rural population has
actually decreased for two decades, and that the city
population has more rapidly increased than ever be-
fore, we are prepared to see why a considerable num-
ber of rural Churches have been abandoned and an-
other percentage is struggling for existence. Happily,
some of them are prosperous and growing in power.
The problem, therefore, is so to adjust the Church to
the new conditions in rural life as to enable it to ad-
152
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
minister adequately to the spiritual needs of all the
people. This has brought to the front the distinct
need on the part of the ministry of a study of the
rural religious and social problems. A few theological
seminaries in the country, recognizing this need, have
provided conferences on rural life (summer schools
for rural ministers), and have introduced into the
course of instruction some study in rural sociology.
It is hardly to be expected that the colleges of the
country will ever be able to meet this situation.
Many young men complete their college course before
determining to enter the ministry. Their previous
study, therefore, may not have been the best suited
as a foundation for theological study. The theolog-
ical seminary is, therefore, confronted with the prob-
lem of equipping her students for efficient service in
the Church. It is rather easy for the seminary to
have the city point of view. What Dean Bailey has
described as a city-minded man is more frequently
found in the college graduates than the country-
minded man. Service in the rural Church, to be
most effective, should be rendered by the country-
minded man. It is here that the agricultural college,
with its knowledge of rural conditions, rural life, and
the rural mind, might be able to make an important
contribution to the preparation of the country min-
ister. Is it too much to suggest that a close co-oper-
ation between the agricultural colleges and the theo-
logical seminaries might render a distinct service in
this particular? There are men in our agricultural
colleges quite as enthusiastic about the Christian and
153
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
social problems of the country as they are about any
economic problems of the farm. These men could
profitably co-operate with the theological seminaries
in the training of the ministry. Already, as intimated
above, a start has been made. There are two ways
by which it might be continued. First, nearly all the
colleges of agriculture are giving short courses during
the winter season, to which they invite matured
farmers. These courses are intended to be more or
less popular in the presentation of the practical prob-
lems concerning the farmer. A study of these prob-
lems would be helpful to the pastor in a rural com-
munity. Ministers who have attended them have
attested the value of the instruction, as giving them
a better understanding of the farmer's point of view.
There is no good reason why these short courses
should not introduce at least an elementary study of
rural sociology. This would bring the farmer and
his pastor on a common ground, and enable them to
see the problems of their community in a new light.
The second method might be to introduce an oppor-
tunity in the theological seminaries for competent
men in the colleges pf agriculture to give courses of
lectures or instructions to theological students that
would present the farmer's problems in such a way
as to enable the minister of the gospel to enter upon
his work better equipped than he now does. This
method of co-operation has been fully attested in
other fields. Every technical school in the country
now seeks to familiarize the students before gradua-
tion with the practical workings of engineering and
154
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
industrial enterprises. Colleges of agriculture put
special emphasis upon the importance of their students
making a study of the most successful farms and farm
operations within a reasonable distance from the
college. This is simply the laboratory method ap-
plied to technical education. Its purpose is mani-
festly to supplement the theoretical knowledge of the
class-room with a practical acquaintance of every-
day affairs. The minister of the gospel, above all
other men, must deal with the practical affairs of
the people in their every-day life. His success in or-
ganizing the religious forces of the rural communities
will be measured largely by his ability to understand
the conditions as they are. The agricultural college
and the theological seminary are the two places where
his theoretical acquaintance must be obtained". So
earnest are the agricultural college people of the
country in this question of rural betterment that they
are prepared to go almost any distance to meet any
agency in a co-operative service.
4. Immediate Service of the College to the Church
The long-standing argument for the denomina-
tional college has been that the college can render a
distinct service to the Church. When one considers
the annual output of the American colleges and stops
to think that this multitude is almost immediately
sent into our centers of population, and then realizes
that the Church is inadequately organized to meet
and greet these young people, he may well raise the
question as to a closer connection between the college
155
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
and the Church. Into our cities every year an in-
creasing number of young men and young women,
holding college degrees, go for the purpose of pursu-
ing their careers and making a place for themselves
in the world. These are young people of some ideals,
some ambition, and of some power. They ought to
be utilized, but it is doubtful whether the Church
has ever been able to lay hold of this opportunity.
Most of these young men and young women are poor
in purse, many of them in debt, and all of them
struggling for recognition and place in their profes-
sions or callings. They are not in position to bring
any financial strength to the Church for seme years,
but they ought to be affiliated with the Church and
brought into co-operation with the best men and
women of the city in the work of good citizenship.
The college can never do its complete work, nor can
the Church until the two clasp hands in an intelli-
gent effort to make the college-bred man or woman
an effective force in our city life. In a parallel way,
the man holding a degree from the college of argi-
culture or a man having pursued agricultural studies
for a single year or more should, upon his return to
agricultural life, be utilized as a factor in the uplift
and betterment of rural life. Every such young man
should return to his community with a keen apprecia-
tion of the fact that the rural Church is a means of a
great social uplift and the guardian- of the best in-
terests of the community. It is not necessary for the
college of agriculture to commit itself to an objec-
tionable form of teaching religion in order to en-
156
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
courage its students to devote themselves to the rural
Church, or to instruct them in the value of the Church
to the local community. This is by no means sec-
tarianism. It is using the people's institution to in-
struct its young men in the social and religious value
of another institution supported by the same people.
Notwithstanding the objection that has persisted in
the minds of many against the State having anything
to do with religion, it may well be contended that the
problems of the agricultural college have to do with
the fitting of men for efficient rural living. In no
spirit of narrowness or sectarianism, therefore, the
college may urge the importance of the rural Church
as an institution related to the happiness of the
people. The college will not do its whole duty in
teaching men how to grow more corn or to produce
a better type of livestock, but must address itself to
the whole round of rural problems. In rendering this
kind of service the Church and college of agriculture
should be in close accord. No man would be more
welcome among a group of students than the pastor
of the Church from the community in which he lives.
Up to date the Church has neglected its opportunity
of service in the college. The college has probably
neglected its opportunity for service to the Church.
The new awakening among the American people is
rapidly developing the belief that a more generous
attitude toward the institutions of the community,
like the Church and the school, should be cultivated
on every hand. The college of agriculture, founded
and supported for the purpose of maintaining and
157
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
developing a strong, virile manhood and womanhood
upon the farms of the country, as much as for con-
serving our nation's material resources, will do no
violence to American freedom by urging upon students
and the public alike the importance of the rural
Church as one of the best agencies for conserving
rural life. The college can not make a complete
survey of rural life and omit a consideration of the
Church and its work. On the other hand, the Church
at large, interested in the welfare of all the people,
can ill afford to neglect the opportunities afforded in
colleges of agriculture for maintaining and strength-
ening the spiritual forces of the rural Church
158
CHAPTER IX
An Adequate Salary for the Rural
Pastor
By Rev. N. W. Stroup.
The Problem Stated
To frankly state that two of the most important
elements that have to do with the human side of the
advance of Christ's coming Kingdom are money and
men, does not depreciate the pre-eminence of the
spiritual. We need not worry about the divine ele-
ment in Christianity if we meet the conditions. The
call of Christ is for service, substance, and self. That
is to say, the saving of men is helped or hindered by
the obedience or disobedience of individuals. Do we
obey? Do we serve? Do we give?
The Union army in the days of '61 to '65 de-
manded both money and men. The true patriot was
of supreme importance, but his equipment and main-
tenance were also essential. Consecrated wealth in
aid of truth has enabled many nations to win in the
contests of the centuries that otherwise would have
signally failed. The officers of the Lord's army, en-
gaged in the greatest warfare of the centuries, must
not be asked to maintain their own support. The
159
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
conquest must not be delayed by the commissary
department.
A Comparison of Salaries and Service. — It is
stated on good authority that one-third of the min-
isters of the LInited States are receiving a salary of
less than $400 a year, notwithstanding the fact that
the average family can not be properly supported on
less than $750 a year. The common hodcarrier in
New York receives $900 yearly wage. The union
plumber receives $1,200 for an eight-hour day's
service. The average carpenter receives in excess of
$1,000 a year. In contrast to these trades that re-
quire little or no special training, the pastor must
spend about $2,000 on his education; he must educate
his family, dress well, buy books and periodicals, as
every other up-to-date professional man, pay his
debts promptly, and be a self-respecting citizen; and
do all this on half the salary of many day laborers.
Excluding the large cities, the highest average shown
by any denomination is only $710, while one denom-
ination pays an average salary as low as $325.
Some one has wisely said, "The evil one has hit
upon the device of starving the minister as a means
of crippling the work of the Christian Church." The
sin of the saints is a subtle selfishness that is suicidal
to spiritual growth and Christian conquest. There is
a low and a higher sacrifice, and many fail to dis-
tinguish between these two forms, which are alike in
name, but wholly unlike in quality. The one is con-
tent to allow the pastor to practice self-denial in
financial matters, the other demands efficiency in
160
AN ADEQUATE SALARY
equipment and "a living sacrifice, acceptable unto
God," yielding the maximum of service to men.
The Work of a Country Church Commission. — We
would call attention to two examples of injustice
calling for remedy, that may serve as an explanation
for the action of the Country Church Commission of
the Cleveland District of the Methodist. Episcopal
Church.
First. That of a pastor who was compelled to sell
his life insurance policy to enable him to buy a horse
and carriage, necessitated by a change of location.
The brother died suddenly, and his widow was de-
prived of the insurance money to which she was right-
fully entitled.
Second. A pastor, with a wife and family to sup-
port, served a charge faithfully for eleven months
last year, and during that time received but $248
from three Churches. He was required to buy a
horse, carriage, and harness costing SI 40, at the be-
ginning of the year, and then wait until the close of
the year for the balance of the $600 promised.
On the Western frontier such treatment might be
excusable, but on the Western Reserve1 it is out of
harmony with the principles of the gospel we preach.
On the principle that the strong ought to help the
weak, the Commission decided to appoint a day in
November that should be known as "Forward Move-
1 When Connecticut ceded her Western lands to Congress in 1786, she ex-
pressly reserved a strip of land stretching westward from the eastern boundary
of Ohio immediately south of Lake Erie. This strip of territory was known
as the " Western Reserve," and is still referred to by this name with pride by
the descendants of the pioneers who live in it.
11 161
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
ment Day," and the members of each Church were
requested to make an offering of a sum equal to their
income for that day. The following Sabbath they
brought their gifts to the Church, and offered praise
to God for the influence and power of the village and
rural Churches, which to the majority had been their
spiritual birthplace. The plan was a new one, and
had to win its way for a fair hearing in Churches
already crowded with requests for special appeals.
But wherever presented the response was cheerful,
and the donors testified to being blessed in their
giving. These struggling Churches near the old home-
steads that had suffered so many departures were
brought back to memory, and in that memory there
was a message and a ministry.
The gifts of the Churches came in, and were sup-
plemented by several personal subscriptions from
friends who had caught the vision of the need and
wanted to help. The Commission was glad to fulfill
its promise to supplement the salaries that fell below
the minimum of $750 and house, and by paying the
larger portion of it during the first three months of
the year, the pastors have had a new spirit of devo-
tion and zeal in their service. The time heretofore
wasted in worry and trying to meet bills payable was
invested in service to seek and save the lost.
The purpose of the plan is twofold:
First. Better Service through better leadership, at-
tainable by the payment of a living wage.
Second. The lengthening of the pastorate term,
a very necessary clement in the great task of rural
162
AN ADEQUATE SALARY
leadership and community-building. We have too
few Charles Kingslcys and John Kebles, who are con-
tent to spend thirty years in one parish and redeem
a community. One pastor, who may serve as proof
of the above, was continued for an additional year,
so that he might have time to reap the harvest of his
sowing. This man experienced one of the greatest
revivals known in that charge for a generation. The
gift of $150 in this instance was instrumental in help-
ing to make possible one hundred conversions. Thus
we see that money has a very vital relationship to
the Kingdom.
The Right to Expect a Living Wage
That a young man should demand, and has a right
to expect, a living wage in the work of the ministry is
no reflection upon his consecration or call to Christian
service. We are not speaking of frontier work or the
foreign field, but of well-to-do communities, where the
people live in good homes and have enough and to
spare of this world's goods, and who would not be
impoverished by the giving of a tenth of their income
to Christ and His Church. It is no longer demanded
of a minister to live a life of deprivation and extreme
self-denial, in so far as the comfortable support of him-
self and family are concerned. He ought to sacrifice
and he must do strenuous service, but for the members
of the Church to be content to let their spiritual leader
want for the bare necessities of life, while they live
in comfort, is inconsistent with the teaching of the
gospel we profess to practice.
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SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
A splendid young man employed by a business
firm at a salary of $1,200 a year, and that paid
monthly, felt called to the work of the Christian min-
istry, and would not be disobedient to the call, but
he had a family to support and educate. The Church
says we can pay you only $600, and three-fourths of
that will probably not be collected until the end of
the year. They are able to pay more, and they could,
by some effort, pay it regularly, but experience proves
that they do not. The preacher, in this case, is called
upon to make more than his full share of the sacri-
fice, when he has a reasonable right to expect that
his Christian brethren share in this self-denial. The
members of our Churches, as well as those outside
the Church, must come to realize that God holds
them responsible for their share of service and sacri-
fice no less than He does His other disciples who have
heard the call to be leaders and generals in this battle
against sin.
What Constitutes a Living Wage?
What is a living wage for a minister of the gospel
in this twentieth century? Some one has stated that
the "ideal standard of living demands the satisfac-
tion of reasonable wants of both body and intellect,
and includes an ambition to improve." Professor
Albion W. Small, in a volume on "Charities and the
Commons," asserts that the average family needs a
thousand dollars. The New York Commission, after
a scientific study of thousands of families, sets the
minimum at the point where the average family
164
AN ADEQUATE SALARY
ceased to run into debt at $825. Carroll D. Wright
in 1901 investigated the cost of living for 25,440 fam-
ilies living in thirty-three different States. The re-
sult of this study, confined to wage-earners, showed
4.38 as the average membership of each family, and
the mean income of all was $749.50. In 1908 statistics
give the average income of the anthracite miners in
Pennsylvania as $693.34, and though these foreigners
can live on less than one-half the amount required
by the average American family, even they are not
as well cared for as they deserve.
Engel's table of proportionate expenditures is as
follows :
Food 50 % $375 00
Clothing 18 %
Rent and lodging 12 %
Education, religion, etc 5 %
Heat and light 5.5%
Care of health 3 %
Comfort, recreation 3.5%
Legal protection 3 %
Total 100 % $750 00
This list has no mention of life insurance, books,
periodicals, benevolences, railroad fare, expense of
keeping a horse, laundry, furniture, and a score of
small expenses and demands that come to every min-
ister during the year.
Another carefully prepared table of expenditures
for the average family of four, which has in it no
provision for death, protracted illness, or the edu-
165
135
00
90
00
37
50
41
25
22
50
26
25
22
50
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
cation of children beyond the common school, is
as follows :
Rent .$167 00
Car fare 14 00
Fuel and light 39 00
Furniture 9 00
Insurance 19 00
Food 345 00
Meals away 22 00
Clothing 112 00
Health 18 00
Taxes and dues 11 00
Recreation 6 00
Education 5 00
Miscellaneous 40 00
Total $807 00
The following plan, suggested by F. M. Barton,
editor of The Expositor, is worthy of careful consider-
ation, and ought to aid in the solution of a very serious
problem, which faces all the denominations repre-
sented in the rural districts:
"The minimum salary for ministers shall be $750 and house,
and the maximum salary $3,000. Any Church may pay more
than $3,000, provided the Church gives an amount equal to the
excess of the $3,000 to ministerial relief, to be used exclusively
for insuring a salary of S750, and for the support of ministers
who have been honorably retired on account of age or disability.
No Church shall receive any portion of this relief fund unless
the members of said Church are giving for Church and minis-
terial support an amount equal to the amount of taxes paid on
real and personal property by the combined membership."
This, as has been stated, would be opposed by officials
and pastors in large Churches, but it has the advan-
166
_AN ADEQUATE SALARY
tage of being Christian in spirit and brotherly in
practice.
Rights of Pastor and of People
The country pastor has some very just rights that
should be respected and complied with on the part of
the membership of every Church.
First. That he shall receive a living wage com-
mensurate with his needs and the efficiency of his
ministry.
Second. That his salary shall be paid promptly
and regularly each month or week. If this should be
impossible in some few places, then a loan could be
made at the beginning of the year, from which sums
can be drawn to pay the salary as it falls due. The
interest on $200 for ten months would amount to
only $10, and that could be borne by a hundred
people much easier than by one man, especially when
that one is the pastor.
Third. That each pastor serving a circuit where
a horse and carriage are essential, shall have this part
of his equipment furnished by the Church, just as it
now provides the parsonage. Officials give as an ex-
cuse that some preachers do not know how to care for
a horse, and they might injure it. My answer to this
objection may be briefly stated in these words:
"Any man who is fit to care for the souls of immortal beings
surely ought to be capable of being entrusted with the care of a
horse and buggy."
Fourth. A pastor is deserving of the most broth-
erly consideration and co-operation in all the work
167
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
he is commissioned of God to perform. The Church
can not well refuse to organize a committee that will
see to the business management of its finances.
The claims of the Church must not be ignored or
lightly set aside. It has a right to expect faithful,
conscientious, self-sacrificing service on the part of
him who is to be its minister. His time and talents
belong to the Church that supports him; not that it
may dictate what he shall preach, but that he must
give himself wholly to this one task. Should he,
after preaching on Sundays, spend the greater part
of the week either in loafing at home or lecturing for
extra revenue away from home, the officials have a
perfect right to object, on the ground that they are
not receiving that for which they are asked to pay.
The Principle of Subsidizing Weak Rural Churches
Some few Churches have suffered so greatly by
the removal of supporting members that they are
unable to meet the salary standard. These must not
be given inefficient, untrained leaders, which is cer-
tain to mean decline and death, but for a year or two
they should have outside support to enable them to
reinforce their waning membership roll. In this con-
nection, we may state that it should not be our policy
to continuously subsidize any Church so long as there
is a possibility of stirring the local field to the plane
of honorable self-support. To some charges we have
sent either "amateurs" or superannuates, until the
treatment has endangered the life of the patient. The
need is not more money, but more man. Our rural
168
AN ADEQUATE SALARY
Churches are often the victims of a faulty policy, and
we must begin our solution higher up.
To insistently state that the farmers of a certain
parish are abundantly able to pay a decent salary,
and that we will .do nothing for them unless they do
their full duty, is not the part of wisdom, and has
killed more Churches than it has helped. The same
could be said of many city parishes where the Church
has closed its doors. We forget that they must be
enlisted in the message and ministry of the society
before they can be counted on for financial support.
While this is being done, a competent leader must be
guaranteed a living for himself and family. The task,
in some instances, may only require six months'
time, while in others it may demand three years.
But whatever the time or expense involved, if the
Church is needed, we must be ready and willing to
pay the price. The need is often greatest where the
ability to support is very meager.
Money and Ministry
Money has a very vital relationship to ministry
in this twentieth century. We are not condemning
the ideals of our fathers when we insist they do not
always apply to the present age which we are di-
vinely called to serve. The spiritual man can not
escape being affected by his physical condition, and
no more can the minister of Jesus Christ escape the
many exacting demands made upon him by this
modern age in which he must live and labor. The
people require that their spiritual leader be a man
169
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
among men, self-respecting and self-supporting, and
able to properly care for himself and family in so far
as the common necessities of life are concerned.
The modern pastor must not be a mediaeval ascetic
cr a recluse. John Wesley did not imitate John the
Baptist either in diet or dress, and yet he was not
unlike him in spiritual fervor and devotion. There
is no force in the appeal to use the old "flint-lcck"
when we have the modern repeating rifle. Courage
and patriotism are elements of character quite apart
from the form of army equipment. Voluntary pov-
erty is no longer the badge of saintliness. Consecra-
tion is not dependent upon self-denial in material
things. While it may at times be a necessity, it is not
an essential to pastoral fidelity.
We demand efficiency in Christian work, and
whether that be wrought out in the foreign field or
the home land, it requires money as well as men. It
is no credit to a denomination to state that its pastors
subsist on less than the standard wage of the average
laboring man, who is quite generally underpaid. If
the Church is to move forward "like a mighty army"
to the conquest of this world for Christ, the generals,
as well as the men in the ranks, must be well fed,
comfortably clothed, as well as carefully disciplined.
The times demand it, and the Master will not excuse
our failure to measure up to the efficiency standards
of twentieth-century life.
Pay for Trained Leadership
The rural pastorate is worth while, and the office
should not be minified, but rather magnified. The
170
AN ADEQUATE SALARY
country community has ever been the physical,
moral, and spiritual recruiting ground for the city.
The best of our educational and religious leaders are
none too good for the work in hand, and the farmer
can not afford to be satisfied with cheap and un-
trained pastors and religious teachers. "The city,"
as Professor L. H. Bailey expresses it, "sits like a
parasite, running out its roots into the open country
and draining it of its substance. The city takes
everything to itself — materials, money, men — and
gives back only what it does not want." We must
not forget that the country problem is a personal one,
and has to do fundamentally with the character of
the individual, as ,well as with the question of in-
creased crops and larger profits. That means leader-
ship, and able leaders have a right to expect competent
support.
A recent census of the prominent men of New
York City, according to Newell Dwight Hillis, shows
that uoS per cent of them were reared in the villages
and rural districts. Seventeen of twenty-three Pres-
idents came from the farm. A census of the colleges
and seminaries in and about Chicago showed that
the country communities are furnishing 80 per cent
of our college students. The chances of success seem
one hundred to one in favor of the country boy."
This is more than a question of pure air and good
health, and is far more moral than physical. The
explanation is deeper than even a genius for hard
work, essential as that quality may be. These facts
emphasize the importance of trained leaders.
171
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Sacrifice has quality as well as quantity. The
miser and the martyr both sacrifice. We must not
confuse the different grades which may have certain
features in common, but yet are almost wholly unlike
in character. First, there is the sacrifice of love —
the losing of life for Christ's sake — which results in
permanent ministry to mankind. Second, there is
the sacrifice of material things and of equipment for
service, which have to do largely with the outward
life, and results in efficiency and impotency. One
has to do with courageous conquest, while the other
has to do with our every-day living. One is spiritual,
the other physical; one has to do with Christ's com-
ing Kingdom, the other concerns the individual and
his maintenance.
It is one thing to be a true patriot and quite an-
other thing to be a volunteer pauper. It was no
credit to the Union that her soldiers were crippled for
lack of good food and proper clothing. Patriotism is
not dependent on physical starvation; neither is
spirituality dependent on financial stringency. The
genuineness of a man's call to the ministry is not
conditioned on small salaries. It is true that these
still find a place in the religious creed of many good
people, but they are irrational and un-Christian. We
denounce the mediaeval asceticism of the Roman
Church, but our present-day treatment of many min-
isters is quite out of harmony with the spirit of the
gospel.
Sacrifice in and of itself may have no special moral
value. It may be blind asceticism or pure selfishness.
172
AN ADEQUATE SALARY
There is a vast amount of sacrifice that is wholly
commercial and in the interest of evil. The higher
sacrifice is in aid of righteousness and truth, while
the lower is usually the servant of self and substance.
It is not difficult to find successors to the man who,
praying for his pastor, said, ''Lord, you keep him
humble, and we '11 keep him poor," thinking those
two qualities as vital to pastoral piety. There are
many "officious" members who imagine that it is
not strictly religious to pay a pastor regularly and
liberally. When the plea is made for an advance in
salary, they express fear of what they term seculariz-
ing the ministry, as though a living wage would in-
terfere with a man's spirituality. Officials are often
very exacting as to a preacher's poverty, but. quite
indifferent to his inefficiency and lack of aggressive-
ness.
Sacrifice will always serve if it be of the right
sort, and a proper financial support will always en-
hance that service. Why should we not have more
sense and less sentiment regarding money and re-
ligion? We ought to be so anxious for the success of
the work that we should rejoice in every possible rein-
forcement of the workers. Money in the possession
of a consecrated pastor or layman is a power for
good. The danger is not in the amount of salary
received, but rather in the character of the individual
receiving it. The genuineness of a man's call to the
ministry can never be safeguarded by a limitation of
income. It must be determined by some higher
motive.
173
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
The emphasis must be placed on strenuous service.
The lazy pastor who is content to accept starvation
wages lends no halo to the calling, and is small value
to the kingdom. Our low standard of salary has a
tendency to invite a class of men who are devoid of
the ambition and aggressiveness that would com-
mand success in other professions. The work of the
Christian ministry is no place for men who are con-
tent with mediocre attainment. Moral and spiritual
leadership demands men of strong convictions and
commanding courage. Men of this type will not
consent to be treated as objects of charity.
The monks of the Middle Ages, who took vows of
celibacy and poverty, are poor models of Christian
consecration. They were deficient in the main attri-
butes of New Testament Christianity, in that they
neither served as salt nor leaven nor light. They were
as useless to the Kingdom as they were poor, and as
deficient in vital piety as they were superstitious.
The mistaken policy that fosters such a practice is
more pharisaic than Christian, and should find no
favor in present-day thought.
The call is for a "living sacrifice, wholly and ac-
ceptable unto God, which is our spiritual service."
That means something far more vital than poor
clothing and poor food; something more reasonable
than limited libraries and inadequate educational ad-
vantages. We can not be content with such a re-
sponse to the call. The Church demands leadership
and loyalty, and the campaign must have able gen-
eralship, amply reinforced for winning in the great
174
AN ADEQUATE SALARY
warfare against spiritual wickedness in high places.
We must have men who can command the army and
win the battle. We need the pastoral patriotism of
Paul, expressed in the words, "I die daily." He did
not refer to starvation in monastic seclusion, but to
that nobler Christian sacrifice of fellowship in the
sufferings of Christ. "To leave all," and "to sell
all," is only the preparatory part, enabling the indi-
vidual carrying "excess baggage" to more success-
fully take up the cross and follow the Christ.
"Toiling up new Calvaries ever
With the Cross that turns not back."
The Master never expected that the disciples
should sit and sing themselves away to everlasting
bliss, nor idly wish "to be nothing." The Christianity
of Jesus demands less of the negative sentiment ex-
pressed in the words,
"Nothing in my hand I bring,"
and more of the positive aggressiveness which ex-
claims,
"To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill;
0, may it all my powers engage
To do my Master's will."
175
CHAPTER X
The Spiritual Evangelization of the
Rural Community Through
Its Church
By Rev. Otis Moore,
Pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church at
North Canton, Conn.
1. The Supreme Aim
What is the test of efficiency in the work of the
Church in the rural community? Does it help to
bring the Kingdom of Heaven into
the hearts of the people? Does it
Help to make the community a part
of the Kingdom of Heaven? This
is the test. Whatever directly or
indirectly ministers to this great
aim is a legitimate activity of the
Church; but if any activity fails in
the long run to help toward the ac-
complishment of this high purpose,
it is worse than useless. The spir-
itual evangelization of the rural community is the
supreme mission of the rural Church, the register of
its real success, and, in the last analysis, the motive
176
REV. MR. MOORE
SPIRITUAL EVANGELIZATION
force which will realize lesser aims, if ever they are
to be realized.
And the inspiring thing about trying to bring the
Kingdom of Heaven into a rural community is that
the Church, which utilizes all the spiritual forces
available, which puts prayer and hard work into its
every activity, may actually see results. The work
of any one Church in a large center, be it ever so
strong and efficient, can at best make only a small
contribution toward the redemption of a great city.
In the country the situation is different. Who has
not seen a rural community actually transformed
within the lifetime of one man — so transformed that
it is easy for all who know the community to appre-
ciate the contrast between what it was and what it
is? Where a community was a center of shiftlessness,
ignorance, and hopelessness — a community, perhaps,
where people lived in almost utter disregard of all
things high and noble, it has become a center of in-
telligence, of moral worth, of high-purposed Christian
citizenship. Things like this have been done and can
be done through the Church. Surely such a task is
one to challenge the consecrated talents of any man.
But a great work of rural regeneration such as
this is not wrought under God in a day, nor under the
leadership of any pastor who is not appreciative of
his opportunity and in love with his job.
2. The Sort of Leaders Needed
In this connection, it may be said that a lack of
real sympathy on the part of the country minister
12 177
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
with his people is back of the failure of many a
country Church's work. Sometimes it is an old min-
ister, buried in his books, a man whose sermons
smell of the study-oil, perhaps a fine preacher for a
scholarly audience, but having no deep sympathy
with, or understanding of, the troubles, needs, and
ambitions of his farmer people. Let no man speak
disrespectfully of this man's ministry, but let it be
said that such a ministry fails to grasp the full mean-
ing of the country minister's opportunity. Some-
times it is a young man, who is just resting in a
country parish until he can make arrangements to go
to a better charge, or, to state the extreme case, until
he can pull the wires or make splurge enough to get
a city appointment. The ministry of such a man is
an incalculable hurt to any rural community. Of all
the perils cf the country Church, probably none
could be worse than the peril of a self-seeking min-
istry. A more common and less pernicious case is
that of the young man w^ho is really deeply devoted
to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, has entered
the ministry perhaps at a sacrifice, but who does not
set himself seriously and definitely to the task of
understanding the people with whom he works in
the country. He may feel that he is not fitted for
work in a rural community, that his training has not
been in that direction at all. In a perfectly natural
way, except for an occasional round of formal calls,
and the routine of Sunday Church service and prayer-
meeting, he puts in most of his time in studying his
books, and very little time in studying the people and
178
SPIRITUAL EVANGELIZATION
the situation with which he has to deal. He wants
to be fitted for a bigger place when the call comes.
His interest in his parish is at best temporary. His
pastorate is short. Sometimes, too, a sort of dis-
illusionment comes to a young man just entering the
work, who is utterly devoid of any self-interest, who
has indeed a very passion for unselfish service, be-
cause he finds that people in general — sometimes
older ministers even — assume that he is anxious to
get a "better appointment." We have no quarrel
with the ambitions of any man, and without doubt
it is perfectly human and natural, and sometimes
necessary, for some men to seek to fit themselves for
the bigger, better-paid places; but the work of a
country preacher in a poor rural community, through
a glorious ministry, is a ministry of service and sac-
rifice. The man who would build himself into the
life of a rural community, who would build himself
into Christ's Kingdom in the country, must give
himself to it with the same passion and self-renuncia-
tion as a foreign missionary. And I believe many
young men are eager to do it. The spiritual evangeli-
zation of the country communities depends on such
men.
3. Hindrances to Spiritual Evangelization
The heart of rural life in the United States is
sound. As a general thing, the country Churches
have held, in some more or less distinctive way, a
place in community leadership. On the other hand,
because many of them have been too narrow in their
field of leadership, they have not xnade conquest of
179
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
their territory. Worse than that, there has been
ground lost in the spiritual life of some country dis-
tricts, which only " grace, grit, and gumption" can
regain. Contrasting, for example, a certain very
prosperous and progressive country community in
Iowa with certain very backward, abandoned farm
sections of New England, two essentially different
conditions present themselves. In both cases an
unprogressive Church is at fault. But in the one
case a very progressive, prosperous community has
left a lagging, unprogressive Church behind it, while
in the other the community itself is dying, because
a visionless Church has failed to give the people the
spirit of co-operation for community betterment.
The cases are typical, and I believe fairly represent
two chief perils of country life. The big task of rural
conservation, of rural betterment, is how to preserve
the simplicity, purity, and naturalness of country
life, while stimulating intelligent progressiveness.
This is the task of the Church ; for the country Church
can not be considered apart from the community.
Their interests are absolutely identical. A peril can
not be a peril to the community unless it is also a
peril to the Church.
(a) The Progressive Community. — In the case of
the prosperous Iowa farming section of which I
speak (and it might as well be a prosperous farming
section of any other State), the community has been
citified too rapidly; social distinctions are beginning
to become prominent. In the old days the hired
man was as good as anybody. Not infrequently the
* 180
SPIRITUAL EVANGELIZATION
hired girl was some neighbor's daughter. Her father
might be better off than the man who hired her, but
if she was not needed at home, she felt no sense of
inferiority whatever in working out. But the curse
of artificial class distinction began to fasten itself on
the country. In this community many of the farmers
have automobiles. Others are madly struggling to
get them; and some have them who have no business
whatever to have them. In ether ways, people are
struggling wildly to get ahead of each other, to make
a show of prosperity before their neighbors. The
people do not go to church; they go visiting on Sun-
days, or speed off to the nearest pleasure resorts.
Shrewdness is at a premium and settled principles are
discounted. It is only among the chosen few that
we find intellectual interests and high ideals. People
live for the moment, or else they do not know what
they live for. Bad as it is, it happens that in this
particular Iowa community the social purity of the
people has not been contaminated very much as yet.
There are a good many empty-headed and flashy
young people around, but there is still a standard of
decency prevailing in general, mostly because the
Church still lives, however feeble and despised. The
harvest of this sort of thing will come in the next
generation, when all connection with the Church has
been broken, and already one can see that it will not
be a desirable result to contemplate. This com-
munity needs old-fashioned religion, burning from the
heart; it needs to have the old gospel of moral right-
eousness and sin-hating proclaimed to it by letter,
181
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
by personal word, by sermon, and from every sign-
post. Somehow the community must be made to
see its drift. The children need to be trained in the
love of Christ and the Church and in the high inter-
ests of intellectual life. • Somehow, at any cost to
discarded formality, the Church must be made the
social center of the community, that it may also be
the spiritual center.
(b) The Stagnant Church. — In the case of the dying
Church in the dying community the situation is alto-
gether different. If it is going to die because there is
another evangelical Church in the community, let it
die. Who shall say that it is not in the Providence of
God that many competing Churches in rural com-
munities are being killed off. I think there is too
much emphasis laid on the necessity for preserving
competition among the Churches. To my mind, the
devil furnishes competition enough for anybody. If
there is only one Church in a country community,
and it is dying because the community itself is dying,
the chances are ninety-nine out of a hundred that if
the Church as an institution helped to promote scien-
tific farming in the community and did its full duty
in uniting the people in co-operative endeavor, both
the community and the Church would live in strength.
4. Helps to Conctructive Evangelization
Now there are other spiritual perils in our country
communities besides these two — stagnation on the
one hand, and progressiveness gone riot on the
other. But these are among the most common and
182
SPIRITUAL EVANGELIZATION
most pernicious. How can they be met and counter-
acted? How can the spiritual regeneration of such
communities be brought about? The answer surely
must be: By making religion more a part of the
every-day interests of the people. The Church should
help to make better farmers, that it may make better
men. The Church should lead in all things good,
that it may lead the people to the best. It should
lead in community betterment, that it may lead the
community to God. There must be old-fashioned
religion, but new-fashioned Church methods.
(a) The Community Survey. — It is a wonderful
thing for a country community to get a clear vision
of itself, and then a vision of what it may become.
It is a forerunner of spiritual conquest; in fact, a
notable triumph in itself, for a community to get an
ideal clearly before it, however far away the realiza-
tion may be. Every pastor and every Church should
study the problem of the local community. Under
the guidance and help of the Holy Spirit, they should
find out as near as possible just what the needs of
the Church and of the community are. If the Church
does not measure up to its opportunities, what are its
weaknesses? Just where does it fall short of the
ideal Church for the field in which it works? How
about the community? If the community is drifting,
morally and spiritually, can not some sort of compass
observation be made to show this. If the country
roads are in bad shape, if farming methods are behind
the times, if there is no wholesome social life for the
young people, if the farmers do not work together as
183
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
they should, can not the trouble be clearly located?
The Church should get before itself a definite ideal
to work for, one which includes the entire com-
munity. It should be an ideal which will capture the
imagination of the young people and stir the interest
of all.
Furthermore, a definite program of specific things
to be accomplished should be carefully worked out
by all. Then a constructive program, covering a
period of years, but amenable to change, should be
adopted. Each organization connected with the
Church should have its responsibility for its part of
the program. Both ideal and program should be
definitely outlined and posted in a conspicuous place.
The pastor should preach at least once a year con-
cerning "What ought this Church to do?" In every
possible way there should be kept before the people
the Church ideal and the community ideal, with a
program of definite things to be done. It is abso-
lutely fundamental in rural Church work to be headed
somewhere definitely, no matter how small the
Church or the community.
(b) Community Brotherhood. — Mark Twain once
said that he wanted to belong to the Human Race
Club. Because it aspires to be a part of the Kingdom
of Heaven, the country Church ought to be a sort of
local headquarters for the Human Race Club. Every
member and every attendant of the Church should
be made to feel his responsibility for making the
Church a place where the real spirit of Christian
brotherhood prevails, and for spreading that spirit
184
SPIRITUAL EVANGELIZATION
in the community. This should be preached and
practiced. Snobbishness should be scathingly con-
demned. Every possible effort should be made to
make the atmosphere of the church attractive to
everybody. The following letter was recently sent
to the heads of the Jewish families in our community,
and the appeal met with a hearty response:
"The object of this letter is to extend to you a very cordial
invitation to come and worship with us at the North Canton
Church. There is no synagogue in this place. I am sure that
you must feel the loss of an opportunity to worship the true God
with others. I do not propose to try to make proselytes of you
or your children in any way. I know that there will be nothing
in my sermons at which you can take offense. Of course, I do
propose to preach the sweet, simple story of Jesus, with the
hope that it will win you to accept Him, but I shall not make
any special proselyting appeals to you. Your children need re-
ligious influences. You realize that as much as I do. Come
and see if you do not like the fellowship of our Church. And,
in any case, let us get together in every way we can for our
mutual good, for the uplift of the community, and the better-
ment of all. Will you not think of me as your brother in the
worship of Jehovah?"
The Church should furnish a wholesome, happy
center of social, intellectual, and spiritual interest for
all. There should be something going on all the
time; something in which social, intellectual, and re-
ligious elements can be helpfully combined. As a
general rule, the social events in the country should
include everybody, from the oldest to the youngest.
Community picnics, farmers' institutes, Old-Home-
Day celebrations, and local historical pageants are
185
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
the sort of things which should draw out everybody.
In our Church we have a "Game Room Night" every
Tuesday evening, to which no one is urged to come,
but everybody is invited; and "Full-Moon Socials"
once a month, with "Nothing to eat and nothing to
pay." We have mock trials, debates, home talent
entertainments, declamatory contests, camp-fire even-
ings, corn-roasts, skating parties in the winter, old
folks' nights, and a baseball team. In the Church
services we celebrate all the days — Harvest Home,
Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Washington's
Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday, Good Friday, Easter,
Seed-Time, Mothers' Day, Memorial Day, Children's
Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, and we make sure
that everybody knows about these things. However
slow the progress may be, the young people should
be trained to have full charge cf their social events,
and to have a helping part in everything done for the
Church. There are books of social plans available
nowadays, and also many periodicals publish excellent
suggestions.1 The old lyceum, with its current events,
question-box, debating society, travel studies, spelling-
bee,2 etc., is still a splendid institution. In so far as
possible, the social events should be cultural and edu-
cative and spiritual; and the educational events, as
1 Stern, Renee B.: "Neighborhood Entertainments," p..297. 1911. Stur-
gis and Walton Company, New York, $1.
2 "Agricultural Words and Spelling Contest Rules " is the title of a book-
let containing an exhaustive list of words commonly used on the farm and in
agricultural instruction, together with rules for conducting spelling contests.
The booklet is especially designed to form the basis of spelling-bees in rural
communities. Specimen copies may be secured for 10 cents each from the
Country Classics Company, 1081 Fair Avenue, Columbus, Ohio.
186
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
farmers' lectures, elocutionary recitals, and general
lectures, should also be social events. Religion should
not be "dragged in" on social occasions, but every
event and occasion should be permeated with the
Christian spirit. Prayerfully and tactfully managed,
these social events may easily furnish rare oppor-
tunities for religious suggestion and influence.
This wider community brotherhood, of which the
Church is the center, should be economic, as well as
social and religious. If a farmer is sick or disabled,
the Church men should lead in organizing the neigh-
bors for a helping-bee. They should lead in good-
road agitation, and see that every dollar spent for road
improvement does something. The Church should
strive in every possible way to promote business co-
operation and mutual helpfulness among farmers.
The movement for co-operation among farmers
now sweeping over the country is one of the most
significant economic changes of the time. It has
already revolutionized farming conditions in certain
sections of the West. The financial success of these
co-operative enterprises is something marvelous. But
that is the least of the benefits. Co-operation is edu-
cative. It is unifying. Not only has co-operation
brought prosperity to many an otherwise doomed
community, but the economic saving to society at
large is tremendous, for it helps to bring to market
immense quantities of food-stuffs which would other-
wise go to waste. It is almost impossible to exaggerate
the significance of the co-operative movement among
farmers throughout the country.
188
SPIRITUAL EVANGELIZATION
Co-operation is a matter of fundamental spiritual
interest. It is based on the faith of a man in his
neighbor, and that, in the last analysis, is based on
a man's faith in God. Co-operation is impossible
without the spirit of brotherhood; in other words, the
spirit of Jesus. In the long run, co-operation can not
live without a religious background, and with a re-
ligious background it - can be made wonderfully
helpful.
(c) The Church's Responsibility for Community In-
telligence.— Souls grow by what they feed upon. There
is no excuse for any rural community being without
good library facilities; and it should be part of the
business of the Church to see that its community
does have such facilities. If the community itself
can not maintain a growing library, outside aid can
undoubtedly be secured. Almost all of the States
now have State traveling libraries available at a nom-
inal cost for transportation.
The Church should encourage, and even promote,
knowledge of scientific farming, and strive to capture
the imagination of the boys and girls for farming as
a life-work, farming with the brains as well as with
the hands. They should also be interested in the
ideal of rural life as one with full-orbed possibilities
for happiness and service. We have had a dozen of
the best known experts on agricultural subjects in
New England come to speak to us in our little church.
Almost any country Church can do things of this
kind by co-operating with the State Board of Agri-
culture and the agricultural college.
189
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
It goes without saying that the Church and the
school should work hand in hand in toning the intel-
lectual ideals of the community. The pastor should
know the schools in his parish thoroughly, and visit
them now and then ; perhaps speak to the children on
some such subjects as "Courage," "Helpfulness,"
' ' Patriotism , ' ' and ' ' Reverence.
The educative opportunity of the country min-
ister is unlimited. In this connection, it may be worth
noting that in our parish the pastor at the regular
Sunday morning service reads a brief quotation of
some kind just after the first hymn. The effort is to
get something which, in its sheer literary quality, will
lift us up toward God. It may be a paragraph from
one of Phillips Brooks' sermons, a little bit from
Tolstoi or Browning or Tennyson, or a contemporary
poet like Edward Rowland Sill or Alfred Noyes. All
such things surely help to fortify our community
intellectually and spiritually, and lead the children
and grown-ups toward God.
5. The Test.
After all, it is not by farmers' institutes or co-
operative movements even, not by good roads nor
libraries, but by the Spirit of God in the hearts of
men that any rural community will be saved — and
saved to do service. It is only as the lesser interests
center in the heart-life of the people that they help
at all. It must be admitted that when a Church is
socialized there is always great, danger of its being
secularized. In carrying out a program of social
190
SPIRITUAL EVANGELIZATION
activity and effort fcr community betterment, it is
easy to get interested in the machinery and to forget
the real end for which we are working. I would not
give anything fcr a Church, no matter how character-
istically a community center, no matter how much an
intellectual center, if the religious basis upon which
it is built does not show itself at every point. On
the other hand, it surely must be true that where re-
ligion is blended with every other interest of the
people, it becomes a much more vital thing than it
can ever be in the one-day-in-the-week Church.
Certainly, these week-a-day interests open up
countless avenues of approach to children and young
people, and even the most indifferent and hardened
non-church-goers. The final and most important aim
must be to touch every individual life in the com-
munity in some helpful way. This is what pastor
and people must pray and wcrk for most. There
must be intercessory prayer for the individual, and
good straight-from-the-shoulder talks with men and
women, boys and girls, about the deep things of life.
If we pray enough the Holy Spirit will drive us to our
work and will guide us in it, even in the most minute
details. A real man of prayer can not be a lazy man,
nor an inefficient worker. The harvest times will
come. Sometimes there will be the great ingather-
ings, but most times the harvest will be hand-picked.
191
CHAPTER XI
The Rural Church as a Factor in the
Social Life of the Country
Community
By Rev. Charles E. Turley, B. L.,
Pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Shawnee, Ohio.
We live in a great age in the world's history. It
is an age of invention, an age of progress, and of de-
velopment along all lines. This
progress is not confined to the great
centers of our population, but per-
meates the whole of our American
life and reaches nearly every rural
community.
The Life with Nature Is the Nor-
mal Life. — Life in contact with
nature is the normal life. It is a
fine thing to plow the fields, to sow
rev. mr. turley the seed, garner the harvests, breathe
the pure air, bathe in the sunshine, and look up at
the stars.
Wordsworth, that great poet of nature, has very
beautifully described the mountain shepherd who
lived in close touch with nature. He says of him:
192
A FACTOR IN THE SOCIAL LIFE
"O then how beautiful, how bright, appeared
The written promise! Early had he learned
To reverence the volume that displays
The mystery, the life which can not die;
But in the mountains did he feel his faith.
All things, responsive to the writing, there
Breathed immortality, revolving life,
And greatness still revolving; infinite:
There littleness was not; the least of things
Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped
Her prospects, nor did he believe, — he saw."
Are We Becoming a Nation of Cities?
A bulletin entitled, "Population of Cities," com-
piled by William C. Hunt, of the Department of
Commerce and Labor, shows that in 1910 the urban
population of this country was 42,623,383, an increase
over 1900 of 38.4 per cent. The rural population was
49,348,883, an increase over 1900 of 11.2 per cent.
The rate of increase of urban population over rural
in the last ten years has been 27.2 per cent. In the
States of Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri there
was a decrease in rural population from 1900 to 1910.
It is very evident that something must be done to
maintain our rural population.
There is, indeed, good cause for the alarm that is
felt by many leaders that our country is fast becom-
ing a nation of cities. The lure of the city has proved
attractive to many, and this attractiveness is on the
increase, rather than on the decrease, in its power.
The irregularity of country work, the introduction of
labor-saving machinery on the farm, the unequal dis-
tribution of the foreign immigrant, the larger social,
13 193
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
industrial, educational, and religious advantages of
the city have all had a tendency to increase the urban
population at a greater rate than the rural. Not-
withstanding this marvelous growth of our cities,
there are still several millions of our citizens engaged
in the occupation of agriculture. The value of the
crops for 1910 reached the enormous sum of $8,926,-
000,000. The value of the crops from 1899 to 1910,
inclusive, amounted to 879,000,000,000.
Serving Rural America is a Great Service
Thus agriculture is a very important factor in our
American life. Whatever is done for the material,
social, intellectual, and religious life of those so en-
gaged is rendering a great service to our country.
When President Roosevelt appointed "The Coun-
try Life Commission," he said to the commission-
ers: "It is especially important that whatever will
serve to prepare country children for life on the
farm, and whatever will brighten home life in the
country and make it richer and more attractive for
the mothers and wives and daughters, should be done
promptly and gladly. There is no more important
person, measured in influence upon the life of the
nation, than the farmer's wife; no more important
home than the country home; and it is of national
importance that we do the best we can for both."
The Rural Community Needs the Christian Church
One of the great centers of rural life, one that has
a commanding influence in molding the highest type
194
A FACTOR IN THE SOCIAL LIFE
of community life, is the Church. Every rural com-
munity needs the presence of a strong, useful Church.
Indifference on the part of the citizens of a com-
munity to the Church and religion can bring only
disastrous results. This indifference will open the
door for almost every form of wickedness and vice.
A letter recently appeared in The Christian Work and
Evangelist, by one who spent four years in the Cana-
dian Northwest. He says: "The nearest church
was twenty-five miles away. There was practically
no organized Christianity in the neighborhood. The
industrial situation was almost ideal. Every settler
owned his own farm. The prairies furnished the wild
hay, free for all who wanted to cut it. Neighbors
were so far apart that there was no excuse for line-
fence quarrels. Every man's success depended upon
nothing but his own industry and good management.
There was no need of over-reaching, of dishonest
practice between neighbor and neighbor. The air
was pure, the skies bright, the soil rich, the climate
wholesome and invigorating, and yet, in spite of this
ideal industrial and social situation, it was not a fit
place to bring up children. Drunkenness, profanity,
and neighborhood quarreling abounded. Those neigh-
borhoods need the Church more than anything else,
and of all institutions in the world, there is but one
that will save those people from drifting into bar-
barism, and that is the Christian Church. Where
the Church is strong and prosperous, the community
Will always be characterized by righteousness, purity,
and kindliness of life."
195
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Prof. Joseph A. Leighton, of Hobart College,
Geneva, in a recent address, said : "The Churches are,
by inheritance and choice, the guardians and cham-
pions of the moral order in society. To-day they
fight against heavy odds. It behooves them to get
rid of unnecessary baggage, to make an end of irrel-
evant controversies, to bury dead issues, and combine
their energies on the one aim of conserving and en-
forcing the Christian moral values of civilization.
"In the midst of social and moral chaos, a few
choice spirits may find consolation and strength in
philosophy; but for the many, vivid, passionate, and
energetic religious conviction is the condition cf
moral health and vigor. No great civilization has
ever outlasted the demise of its religious faith. If
the moral bases of our culture are in imminent dan-
ger, the danger can be averted only by a new crusade
on behalf of social righteousness and personal in-
tegrity, animated by a religious view of life, for which
the human spirit transcends nature through kinship
with absolute spirit."
Dr. Aked, cf San Francisco, says: 'The Churches
are the incarnate conscience cf the nation. They are
a protest against materialism, a perpetual witness to
the ideal."
Dr. Charles E. Jefferson, in his recent book, "The
Building of a Church," says: "A congregation, de-
voutly engaged in worship, is doing something for
the community which can not be done in any other
way."
Many country communities are possessed with the
196
A FACTOR IN THE SOCIAL LIFE
materialistic spirit. Their joys and pleasures seem
to be confined to the things of time and sense. They
need the Church in their midst, in order that the
claims of the higher and better life be presented to
them with such force and power that visible results
will be accomplished.
Dr. Strong has recorded the facts of the history of
two townships on the Western Reserve in Ohio.
"The southern township was founded by a devoted
and far-sighted home missionary. He had become
convinced that he could do more by establishing a
Christian community on the Reserve than by many
years of desultory labor as a home missionary. The
settlers were carefully selected. None but professing
Christians became land owners. A Church was or-
ganized under the roof of the first log cabin. Eight
roads meet in the center of the township, and there
the church was located, to represent the central place
that religion should occupy in the life of the com-
munity. Soon followed the school and the library;
and there, in the midst of the unconquered forest,
only eight years after the first white settlement, the
people planted an academy. At an early period
benevolent societies were organized, and here was
opened the first school for the deaf and dumb in
Ohio. The northern township was settled by an in-
fidel, who seems to have given to his community not
only his name, but his character. He naturally at-
tracted men of his own way of thinking. He hoped
that there might never be a Christian church in the
township, and there has been no evangelical Church
197
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
there. Though one of the best colleges in the West
was founded within five miles, it is not known that
any young man has ever taken a college course any-
where. A few of them have entered professional life,
none of them have gained a wide reputation. On
the other hand, the southern township is widely
known for its moral and religious character, its wealth
and liberality, and for the exceptionally large number
of youths it sends to colleges and seminaries. The
assessed valuation of property in this township ex-
ceeds that of the northern by 56 per cent, though the
latter has better soil. From this little village of a
few hundred inhabitants have gone forth men to the
State Legislature, to the pulpit, to college professor-
ships east and west, to the Supreme bench of the
State, and to Congress."1
Phases of Social Activity for the Rural Church
The Church in the rural community ought to
bring the people together on one common platform.
A very illiterate man once said to me: "I tell you,
we must meet as the apostles did in the days of old.
They all met with one discord!" The fact of the
case is, too many of our rural Churches meet in just
that way. There are divergent elements in the com-
munity, the moral forces are divided and scattered,
and a real coherent community life is impossible.
The country Church must do more than hold
Sunday school on Sunday morning and have a preach-
ing service once every two weeks. The church must
1 Dr. E. S. Lewis in Sunday School Journal — M. E.
198
A FACTOR IN THE SOCIAL LIFE
be made a real social center in the rural community.
It should take the lead in work and recreation, and
should ever strive for the practical betterment of the
people in the community.
The Church, to win men, must be social, and
must take an interest in them. There are poor people
in nearly every community, who ought to be reached
by the Church. The question ought not to be, "How
much can they pay toward the expense fund?" but,
"How much of help and inspiration can the Church
bring to them?"
It is a fundamental fact of human existence that
young people are going to associate together. Obey-
ing the law of their being, the sun shines, the bird
sings, the flower sheds its fragrance, the rain falls;
and, obeying an inward law of their being, young
people are going to meet together somewhere. If not
in the church, then elsewhere, many times, perhaps,
under questionable influences.
To many young people, country life is very dull
and uninteresting. Their lives are one round of
ceaseless toil. They have n't much to look forward
to: and just so soon as they approach young man-
hood and womanhood they begin to cast longing eyes
toward the city, where things are happening, and
where they can find some amusement and pleasure
to break the monotony of their daily toil. Thus every
year many ambitious young people are lost to our
country homes.
Governor Eberhart, of Minnesota, in an address
before the General Conference of the Methodist
199
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A FACTOR IN THE SOCIAL LIFE
Episcopal Church, in which he pleaded for the co-oper-
ation of the Church in the movement toward rural
betterment, said : " The depopulation of our country's
rural districts and small towns and the congestion of
our large cities, that feed our criminal institutions,
presents the serious question of whether or not the
Church, as an instituticn, ought to take steps to
make country life a little more attractive and city
life a little more wholesome.
'The time has ccme when a religious body like
this ought to take into consideration the fact that
country life is too lonesome, and that the city gets
every attraction. The glare and glitter and glimmer
of the city is attracting thousands and tens of thou-
sands of young men, women, and children from our
rural districts, and they are congesting our cities.
Here is a problem over all the problems that are to
be solved here. Now, then, what is to be done? I
would like to request this body cf men and women
to co-operate with the State in the establishment of
social centers in the country, where we can bring to
the people attractions and amusements that are clean
and wholesome, and which will attract the young
people and keep them from being drawn to the large
cities."
If the rural Church is to held its own and meet
its larger opportunity, it must recognize its social
mtesion.
Oftentimes there are, in rural communities, good
Christian people who love the Church supremely, and
who love God devoutly, who can not see the impor-
201
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
tance of relating the social life of the young people
with the life of the Church. Some argue that the
Churchwas made for worship and for worship alone.
They vigorously oppose any move made in the direc-
tion of social improvement, on the ground that the
Church will become worldly: and every year many
young people drift away and are forever lost to the
Church, because of the failure of the Church to realize
its social mission.
A Typical Example of the Status of the Church in
Rural Communities
The writer recently spent a week in a township
in one of the rich counties of Western Ohio, investi-
gating country life conditions.
The value of land and buildings totaled $1,302,110.
The farms were well cared for, and the people were
prosperous. The population of the township was
1,512. There were six church buildings and five
active societies. In these five churches there was a
membership of 550, leaving 968 who do not belong
to any Church.
Farmers, school teachers, merchants, and min-
isters wTere interviewed, and all united in saying that
the Churches were making no attempt to improve
the social life of the young people. Some seemed to
think the mission of the Church was distinctly re-
ligious, and young people ought to be satisfied with
the Sunday school and the prayer-meeting. The
result was there were but few young people who be-
longed to any of these Churches.
202
A FACTOR IN THE SOCIAL LIFE
The older people lamented the fact that "times
were not as they used to be," and the Church not as
strong as thirty years ago.
I asked the question, "Why is the Church not
stronger than it is?" Various answers were given.
I will record a few of them:
"Mediocre talent in the pulpit. When one goes
to church, one wants to get something worth while."
"There are divisions in the Church over minor
questions."
"Many have gotten out of the habit of church
attendance. New people come into the community,
and soon drift into the ways of the people."
"Too much Sunday visiting. Renters do not at-
tend much, as they either go visiting or entertain
company on Sunday."
"The Churches are making no attempt to improve
the social life of the young people."
"Churches are selfish. Have their own crowd,
and do not care a great deal about others." (This
man was a professional man of the town, and said
he had never been approached on the subject of the
Christian life, except by ministers. )
"Older families moved into town, and those who
came did not take their place."
"People are too selfish, in the mad rush for money.
The younger generation is more concerned about the
making of money than religious things."
"Not enough sociability in the Churches."
"A few in the Churches want to run things."
"Too long intervals between preaching services."
203
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
These Churches have a great opportunity to ren-
der a soeial service to the people in their communities.
The people were hungry for social life, and the
Churches were not attempting to feed them. If the
Church people of this community would arouse
themselves, use some of their latent energy, and at-
tempt for three months to make their Churches
social centers of community life, there would be a
revolution in the life of the whole people, and the
Churches would increase numerically, financially, and
spiritually.
The Church Should Encourage and Minister to All Good
Community Activities
That Church is the most spiritual that is rendering
the most practical, helpful service to all departments
of community life.
With many rural Churches there is a great struggle
for bare existence. ■ Oftentimes the main question
seems to be, "How can we save the Church?" and
not, "How can the Church save the people?" The
Church is built by the people of a community. It
stands, or should stand, to serve the people of that
community. Open its doors to helpful lectures, to
clean entertainments by the young people, and, if
there is no other building in the community that can
be used, have a social meeting in the church.
Once the writer was very much criticised by some
of the over-pious members of his flock, because he
brought the young people of the community together
in the church for a literary program. Among other
204
A FACTOR IN THE SOCIAL LIFE
things on the program, we had a debate. It was in
1908, and the question debated was: " Resolved,
That it is to the best interest of the country that Mr.
Taft be elected President."
All of the debaters were beardless youths, and
they debated with a frenzied enthusiasm. Several
members of the Church would not attend, saying,
"You are bringing politics into the Church, and the
Church was made for worship." But a pleasant
evening was put into the lives of the young people,
and they went home feeling that the Church was in-
terested in their best welfare.
When the Church will awaken to its social mission,
folks will rally to its standards who have never been
reached before; for they will see the Church means
business, and stands for the development of the full-
orbed, complete life.
A Few Suggestions from Practical Experience
I close the chapter with some practical sugges-
tions which have been worked out and successfully
applied in the writer's own experience.
After sufficient interest has been awakened in the
social mission of the Church, it will not be difficult
to raise funds to add a room to the church to be used
for social purposes. Make it large enough to have a
cloak-room, a good kitchen, furnished with shelves,
dishes, stove, and cooking utensils. Then have a
large room where, if they desire, boys can play basket-
ball, where banquets can be served, where games can
be played, and where a general good social time can
205
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
be had. Let the people feel that it is their room, built
to promote the social life of all the people of the com-
munity. Such a room can be built and equipped for
$800 to $1,000. Give the people a chance to donate
labor and money, and that will give them an interest
that can be created in no other way. Such a room,
28 x 40 feet, was built in one of my pastorates, and
has met a long-felt need in the lives of the people.
In our present pastorate the young women of the
Sunday school have been organized into a Philathea
class. They meet every two weeks, spend some time
in Bible study, have a program with readings, essays,
and music. Light refreshments are served. This
gives the girls a pleasant evening together, and makes
them more interested in the work cf the Church.
They recently gave a banquet to their mothers, which
was a very enjoyable affair.2
Get the men of the community interested. Some-
times it will take a great deal of patience to get the
men to feel that the Church is interested in them
and can help them. In my present pastorate, we or-
ganized a men's Bible class. It started with an en-
rollment of seventeen, and has an average attendance
of ten. When the organization was completed, the
officers assumed the expense of serving refreshments,
and a general invitation was given to the men of the
town to be present. A literary program was rendered,
with a debate on "The Woman Suffrage Question."
2 Instructions as to how to organize such classes can be obtained from
Baraca-Philathea Supply Co., of Syracuse, New York, or from the Sunday
School Boards of the various denominations.
206
A FACTOR IN THE SOCIAL LIFE
Fifty-seven men were present. After the program,
we retired to the Sunday school room and spent a
social hour over hot hamburger sandwiches a.nd
coffee. That one meeting did more for that men's
class than anything else. The attendance in this
Sunday school class was quadrupled, while the total
attendance of the whole school was doubled. We
have these men's meetings once a month, and they
are purely social. The distinctly religious work is
done through the regular Church channels. Condi-
tions here do not make it practical to organize a de-
nominational brotherhood.
A Circulating Library
For ten years the writer was near a good uni-
versity and a State library. On removing a distance
from these, he discovered how much they were
missed. We found young men and women, boys and
girls, anxious to read. Many had read nearly every-
thing that came to their hands.
In Ohio, the State Library has a circulating de-
partment. On receiving an application, signed by
some of the responsible citizens of a community, this
department will loan from fifty to two hundred vol-
umes for eight months. There is very little expense —
only paying the freight on the books to and from the
library. By this means the Church may be made a
center where the young people may meet and ex-
change ideas on the books they read. This also gives
the pastor an opportunity to direct the reading of
the young people.
207
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
The Mission of the Rural Church
The rural Church has a greater mission to-day
than ever before. She must keep abreast of the times;
she must stand for progress and development; she
must fulfill her social obligations to society; she must
issue her perpetual protest against the life that creeps
and crawls; she must continue to be a place where
the young find the inspiration of high ideals, where
the sorrow-stricken receive their message of comfort,
and where the weary find rest.
208
CHAPTER XII
Boys' and Men's Clubs in the Country
Church
By Rev. C. M. McConnell, A. B. (Ohio Wes-
leyan), S. T. B. (Boston),
Pastor cf the Methodist Episcopal Church, Middlefteld, Ohio.
1. The Problem
It is necessary first to state the problem before
us. W e a*rs concerned chiefly with the country Church
and its relation to the community.
The farmer demands a broader and
more effective service from the
Church. The Church, in turn, asks
more loyal support and co-opera-
tion from the farmer. The ideal
placed before the Church by its
Founder is ministry to human
needs. "I came not to be min-
istered unto, but to minister," are
rev. mr. McConnell the words of Christ. Before the
Church can meet this ideal and render effective serv-
ice, it must be ministered to. We must have strong
Churches in the country before we can expect them
to meet the ever-increasing needs of men. Many
14 209
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
well-meaning farmers have neglected their duty to
the Church. As a result, the women have too often
had to support the Church and do the work of men.
The problem before us is, then, twofold: First, the
farmer and his son must help strengthen the Church
by ministering to it; and second, the Church, in turn,
A RURAL FORUM
must more efficiently meet the needs of men and
better serve the community.
Many rural Churches are solving this difficult
problem by appealing to the social instincts of men
and boys. A normal person craves companionship.
There are some nature-lovers who find trees and rocks
210
BOYS' AND MEN'S CLUBS
and babbling brooks more congenial than their fellow-
beings; but, as a rule, the farmer prefers the fellow-
ship of folks. In seeking a gratification of his social
nature, the farmer is not unlike other men. The
lodge and fraternal order exist in the country as well
as in the city. In various ways the farmer reveals
his social instinct. The country store is a social as
RURAL SOCIABILITY BEFORE AND AFTER CHURCH SERVICES
well as a commercial institution. The farmers gather
at the store to discuss community affairs and politics.
Often it is this opportunity for social intercourse that
proves more attractive and valuable than the wares
of the country store-keeper. Public sales are well
attended in the country, and the farmers find the
social value of the occasion greater than the com-
mercial value. The country Church has been more
or less of a social center for farmers. After the Church
211
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
service the farmers visit and talk about their crops,
while the women plan some enterprise or discuss
their affairs. The club is founded on the social
instinct common to men, and through it the country
Church can better minister to this craving for fellow-
ship.
The Loneliness of the Open Country. — The country
cffers too few opportunities for the gratification of
the farmer's social instinct. The .telephone, good
roads, rural free delivery, and other modern conven-
iences have done much to socialize the country.
The farm is still isolated, and modern conveniences
have not wholly destroyed the isolation of the open
country. The farmer uses the telephone for social
as well as for commercial purposes, but the friendly
visiting with friends and neighbors is done at long
range. Modern farm machinery has replaced many
farm hands, and thereby lessened the rural popula-
tion. The corn-husking machine has been substituted
for the husking-bee, and the grain binder has made
harvesting the work of but a few men. As a result,
the farmer depends less upon his neighbors and more
upon machinery. The fellowship and social inter-
course which accompanied the harvest time, the barn-
raising, and other co-operative work, disappears with
the coming of modern methods, and isolation remains.
The farmer feels the loneliness of his condition, and
the children feel it. even more keenly. We find in
this isolation and lack of social intercourse among
farmers an open door for the country Church that
aims to minister to human needs. The club may be
212
BOYS' AND MEN'S CLUBS
used as an instrument of service through which the
Church can meet the social needs of the farmer.
2. The Boys' Club
Boys are like grapes in their tendency to bunch.
The "stem" is generally some boy of strong will or
sinewy muscle, who has earned the right to lead.
Around this boy, whether in the city or the open
country, we find a "gang," cr group of boys. The
"gang" spirit is merely another name for the social
instinct. It is; indeed, a rare specimen of boyhood
that wanders off to the swimming-hole alone or fishes
in solitude. Boys seldom raid orchards or do mis-
chief alone. There is a time in the life of a boy when
he shuns saints and girls, and seeks his kind. His
chief interest is boys, and his loyalty to the "gang"
is a part of his religion. The "gang" spirit has been
a fruitful subject of study for the psychologist and an
endless cause of worry to distracted mothers. Boys
persist in being boys, and the "gang" spirit must be
reckoned with. Like a boy's will, we should never
break it, but direct it into proper channels. Upon
this social instinct the boys' club is based. Instead
of a "gang," witn questionable leadership and mis-
chievous purpose, it is possible to have a boys' club
rightly led and under the direction cf the Church.
If the social spirit of boys forms the foundation
of a boys' club in the country, the isolation of farm
life creates a demand for it. Homes in the country
are often far apart. At best, the boys on the farms
have few opportunities for association. At the dis-
213
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
trict school, the boys find companionship with other
boys, but the Church offers little along this line. He
is not enthusiastic over prayer-meetings, and the
Sunday school is not his chief delight. He does not
often accompany his father to the store or public
sale, and it is a rare day when he meets with other
boys for play. The social instinct of country boys is
too often neglected by the Church, and the club may
be used to minister to this instinct and destroy the
isolation of farm life.
The Question of Leadership. — With a basis and a
demand for boys' clubs in the country, the question
of leadership arises. The proper management and
direction of the social or "gang" instinct of boys is
of vital importance. The natural leader of the " gang "
may have nothing more than fists or muscle. He
may be unfit to lead in the right direction. The group
of boys in the country may meet at the cross-roads
and exchange vulgar stories, or in the country church
and hear of the- deeds of valor performed by the
knights or heroes of old. They may either rob or-
chards or enter into a corn-growing contest. The
boys may either read dime novels or Scott's tales.
The country Church can direct the boys into the
right activities and provide leadership. A club-room
fcr boys in the country church is as necessary as an
auditorium, and should be furnished according to the
tastes of boys. If the natural leader of the boys is
fit for moral leadership, he may be utilized as a leader.
The leader may be the pastor, if he has the spirit of
youth and the qualities of leadership. He will have
214
BOYS* AND MEN'S CLUBS
need of training unheard-of in theological schools,
and equipment seldom found in the Church. A base-
ball suit and camping outfit, as well as fishing tackle,
will be found as necessary as a frock coat. If other
leaders can be found, the pastor may be excused from
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THE MIDDLEFIELD ATHLETIC CLUB BASEBALL TEAM AND ITS MANAGER,
REV. MR. McCONNELL
this work; but it is the business of the Church to
provide proper leadership.
Opportunities Open to Boy- Club Activities. — A boys'
club must have something worth while to do. The
boys will suggest to the apt and wide-awake leader
a variety of activities. It is not advisable to adopt
the plans found in successful operation in the city.
215
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Many ready-made organizations may yield valuable
suggestions, but few can be used without changes to
meet local conditions. The games and activities
native to the soil and found in the country are most
acceptable to country boys. Many of the rural games
are more virile and red-blooded than the city sports.
Country boys fish and swim and play baseball and
camp; and the country offers an opportunity near at
hand for these activities. Corn-growing contests and
debates are of interest to country boys, and a reading
circle is of value. Some of the old-time games and
social activities might with profit be revived. The
spelling-school and husking-bee had in them elements
of worth that warrant their revival. Along these
lines the leader of the boys' club may direct the
country boys and develop in them a love for the open
country and a loyalty to the Church that makes
possible these activities.
The Church that ministers to the social life of
boys will become attractive to them. The boys who
depend upon the Church for social life are the ones
most likely to depend on the Church for spiritual life.
The ministry will be mutual, and boys will return the
service rendered by the Church. From the boys'
club will come most of the recruits for the Church and
Sunday school. It is with no selfish purpose that the
Church ministers to boys, yet the future of the coun-
try Church depends upon them, and to maintain itself,
the youth must be won by the Church. The boys
must be approached along the lines of their chief
interests. It may be contrary to the desires of his
216
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SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
spiritual advisers that the boy's chief concern is not
his soul- ^ut other things are more real to him. The
score of thj last ball game, the opening of the chestnut
burrs, and the boy's chums are the things dear to the
heart of a boy. The secondary motives may be util-
ized, and in due season the interest of the boy's soul
will come to the front. The main thing is to bind the
boys to the Church in their early years. The cords
of companionship and the ministry to the life of boys
are stronger than vows of membership or parental
authority.
The Highest Aim of Boys' Club Work. — After the
Church has done its best to win the boys to the Church
through the club, there will remain many who do not
attend Church or in any way strengthen it. "The
field is the world," are the Master's words. The boy
lives his life outside the walls of the church. In the
Sunday school the Decalogue is taught, but it is either
applied or disregarded on the athletic field, at home,
and in the affairs of boy-life. As he mingles with
other boys outside the Church, the boy who has
learned the principles of right living can point the
way of life to others. Character is contagious, and is
caught as well as taught. The club teaches the boy
the answer to the question, "Am I my brother's
keeper?" He discovers that there are others in the
world, and that the will of the majority is stronger
than the will of one unruly boy. The aim of the
Church, as it ministers to the boys through the club,
is to call forth the noblest and best in the life of a boy,
and direct his unfolding life into the proper channels
218
BOYS' AND MEN'S CLUBS
of activity. Anything short of this is unworthy of
the Church and its ideal of ministry.
3. The Men's Club
Men are no less social than boys. The lodge and
fraternal order are merely different names for "gangs."
The need of social intercourse is as real in the life of
a man as in the life of a boy. As we have before
stated, the basis of the men's club is found in the
social instinct common to men. The isolation of the
farm, with its few opportunities of social intercourse,
creates a demand for the social group. With this in
mind, we pass to a further consideration of the club
for men in the country Church.
In the country we find few leaders of men. Per-
haps we had better say that we find few followers in
the country. The farmer is naturally independent.
Many look with suspicion upon one who attempts to
lead. The personal element enters into the problem,
and at close range the farmers can estimate the
leader and call to mind his past record. This makes
the selection of a leader for a club of men difficult
and important. As in the selection of a leader for
boys, a moral leader must be found who will lead in
the right direction. The pastor may lead, but it is
far better to place the leadership in the hands of a
man who has freer intercourse with men. Men are
apt to regard the pastor in a professional attitude and
reject his leadership. A minister of tact and quali-
ties of leadership can direct, the work of the club along
the proper lines and, if necessary, assume the actual
leadership. 219
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
The Various Fields of Service for Men's Clubs. — ■
The field of service before a men's club is different
from the opportunities before the boys' club. It is a
real and lasting service to the men of any community
to meet together and enjoy the fellowship a club
affords. There is no better place for men to meet than
in a club-room in a Christian Church equipped to
meet the social needs of men. Any Church can well
afford a club-room that will afford a meeting place
for men, and too few country churches are equipped
for such community service. The club cuts through
all social distinctions and welcomes men of different
faiths. Saint and sinner, rich and poor, workingman
and employer may all meet and learn to know each
other better in a Church that aims to minister to the
social needs of men.
There is a field of educational work before a club
of men. The country does not fully understand the
city and its problems. Too often the city and country
are antagonistic to each other. Men from the city
can address the farmers on the problems and life of
the city. The vital and close relation cf city and
country may be made clear, and a better understand-
ing brought about. The great movements of human
betterment and reform are apt to pass over the heads
of the farmers. Leaders of great reform movements
can be secured by the men's club to address the men
on the work they represent. Lawyers, physicians,
college presidents, and business men of prominence
may make their work clear to the farmer. Topics of
wide and varied interest may be discussed, and re-
220
BOYS' AND MEN'S CLUBS
ligion related to the actual affairs of life. From this
there comes a broader sympathy and wider horizon
to those whose lot is cast in village and open country.
Petty prejudices and narrow provincialism vanish be-
fore intelligent interest in the larger affairs of life and
the world at large.
The local problems of the community should
command the attention of a men's club. Practical
and substantial aid may be given by the club in move-
ments of human and community betterment. Good
roads come only through intelligent and organized
effort. The Church should concern itself about the
roads on earth, as well as about the gold-paved streets
of the world to come. The political ideals of many
rural sections are not ideal. The political boss is not
unheard of in the country. The men's club need not
resort to the tricks of the professional political club,
nor form a new party. At the same time the club
may take its stand on the side of honest government
and law enforcement. Local school conditions and
oversight of play-grounds and sanitation are fields
into which the club may enter and render a practical
benefit to the community. In a word, the men's
club is the hand of the Church, and aims to put into
practical application the principles taught by the
Church. In their efforts to better the community and
promote the ideals of highest value, the men are
welded together in a bond of fellowship that is lasting.
The Final Result. — Many men find their way into
the Church through the men's club. To some it is
an introduction into the Church, and serves as a re-
221
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
cruiting agency for the Church. Members of the
Church work hand in hand with men outside the
Church for the betterment of the community, and
come to know each other. The real aim and ideal of
the Church are revealed and interpreted to men
through the practical work of the men's club. Ques-
tions of doctrine and creed are settled by activity
rather than argument, and the Kingdom of God
comes on earth through better roads, better health,
better citizenship, and righteous living, rather than
through denominational rivalry and doctrinal dis-
putes. If the men's club strengthens the country
Church, it has justified its existence and proved its
worth.
The Ultimate Aim. — The farmer is to-day face to
face with serious and complex problems. Rural con-
ditions are far from ideal, and the country Church
can help in the solution of the farmer's problems and
the building of better rural institutions. If the men's
club aids in the solution of rural problems, it has
rendered a lasting service to humanity. The final
aim of the Church is the answer to the divine prayer,
"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." The
Church that loses itself in service to the community
in the answering of this prayer is the Church that will
survive and warrant the support of the sons of toil
who sow and reap in the open country. It is for this
larger service and lasting good that the club seeks to
fit the farmer.
222
CHAPTER XIII
Recreation and the Rural Church
By Rev. Silas E. Persons,
Minister cf the Presbyterian Church, Cazenovia, N. . Y.
Fun and the Church! Is not this a pair that is
unevenly yoked together? What could be further
apart than a Calvinistic Church and
a good time? Our New England
fathers who whipped the cider-barrel
for working on Sunday never saw it
on this fashion. You say that re-
ligion was then a serious business.
I admit that it was serious, but too
serious to be "business." Noble as
was the Church of our fathers, its
mind and its conscience both pitched
to a high key, it none the less failed
to minister to the whole man; and no such Church,
clinging however reverently to the traditions of the
past, is grappling with the real and living problems of
to-day.
The Recreational Responsibility of the Rural Church
It is a part of the holy mission of the Church to
provide wholesome recreation for its youth. This is
223
REV. MR. PERSONS
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
especially true in regard to the Church in the open
country; for there the provisions for wholesome recre-
ation are few. Young people in the country usually
go away from home for their amusements, and that
is always perilous, particularly if they go unaccom-
panied by their seniors or parents. As a rule, during
the summer months such recreation is sought on
Sunday. For young people to go away from home
alone or in groups in search of pleasure or recreation
on the Sabbath is to subject themselves to temp-
tations against which mere human nature is not for-
tified. It is not necessary to enumerate the dangers
incident to such a course. I think we all agree that
any kind of recreation in one's own neighborhood,
where the older people can be present, is far safer
than these periodic migrations in search cf a "good
time." So every community is under most sacred
obligations to evolve its own sufficient and whole-
some recreations to interest its own young people and
satisfy their reasonable cravings for innocent fun. If
the Church, cheerfully recognizing that play is a part
of life, takes the lead in providing recreation, the
chances are that the quality of the recreation will be
quite as good as it otherwise would be, and also that
the Church will get a stronger hold upon the young
people of the community. Neighborhood recreations
of some sort are the imperative demand, and the
local Church may well enlarge its ministry by fur-
nishing them.
The rural Church should do this without apology,
and with the assurance that it is working inside its
224
RECREATION AND THE RURAL CHURCH
own appointed mission; with the sure recognition of
the truth that sports have ethical value, and that
they are elements in the upbuilding of character. I
like to teach a boy to have the four indispensable
virtues of good sportsmanship — nerve, skill, courtesy,
and fairness. That training ought to fit him to play
fair in the bigger games of life, in the market, in the
arena of politics, in the parliaments of men, never
flinching, never losing temper or unbridling tongue,
never playing false to a competitor, to State, or to
God. The discipline of high-toned, manly sport con-
stitutes one of the essential phases in the education
of modern life. It is a means of grace, and helps to
save the soul from flabbiness, from meanness, from
dishonesty. It is worth while to teach a boy to have
the nerve to be a good loser, to take defeat manfully,
to show courtesy toward his opponent, to play with
generous fairness as well as with winning skill. A
part of the Church's relation to recreation is a teach-
ing that involves the cultivation of manly sportsman-
ship that shall be educational, character-building, and
redemptive.
An example. Each of the five Churches of our
village formed a team for a tournament in bowling.
The local newspaper offered a prize, a beautiful ban-
ner, to the winning team. It was a long contest, ex-
tending through three winter months. Long before
its close excitement ran high. There was a tendency
toward "rooting." In the heat of the battle, the five
men of one team met and agreed that whatever the
result and whatever others might do, theirs was to be
15 225
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
a courteous, manly play, giving even- player a chance
to do his best, and then beating him if they could.
To-day the banner is in the room of their Baraca
class, and it is worth a good deal more to -them and
their fellows because it was won with honor. The
Church serves the young people when it develops in
them the spirit of high-toned, courteous sports-
manship.
The Forms of Recreation and Amusement
The kinds of play are pretty well determined by
the young people themselves. It is to be hoped that
they will never indulge in some of the oscillatory
games that their seniors once thought proper. It is
well that the "fashion changeth." I have never sus-
pected that it is my appointed task as a minister of
the gospel to dictate to the present generation the
kind of harmless recreation they shall enjoy. Play
is play; and time, place, and company being proper,
there is little choice in the kinds of it. Rolling wooden
balls on the lawn and calling it croquet, and rolling
ivory balls on a table and calling it pool or billiards,
are both in themselves equally innocent amusements.
But whether a rural Church should install a pool-
table in its parlors depends on local conditions. You
might be giving a young boy his first lesson in what
would lead him to a pool-table in a saloon. On the
other hand, it may be that all of those young fellows
are playing pool in places where everything that is
fine and clean about them will be polluted. I once had
an experience with a class of young boys who were
226
RECREATION AND THE RURAL CHURCH
in just that danger. We had experienced some difficulty
in holding them in Sunday school, chiefly because we
failed to secure the proper teacher for them. In des-
peration, I temporarily took the class. When they
asked me to teach them permanently I agreed to do
so on certain conditions, one of which was that they
would come to the manse on Wednesday night and
play pool, and bring their Bibles for a half hour of
Bible study. I not only had no difficulty in holding
the boys in the class, but I discovered that I did not
need to teach them any new tricks about the game cf
pool. I discovered also that every one of them, save
one, had learned pool in places where he ought not
to have been. These were boys of the age of fourteen,
an exceptionally fine lot of fellows, some of them
already members of the Church. Either we, as
Churches and Young Men's Christian Associations,
will take the lead and furnish such righteous recrea-
tion as this generation elects as its amusement, or
the saloons and gambling-halls will do this work for
us. Local conditions, however, must determine the
policy of each Church. Every man must be his own
conscience.
In the purely open country among our farmers'
boys the summer recreation is our national game of
baseball. Very often there is no ground in the neigh-
borhood where the boys can play. The result is that
the boys are tempted to go away from the com-
munity for their sport, and, almost as a rule, they do
so on Sunday. What could be worse? What could
be more demoralizing? Every country neighborhood
227
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
blessed with nine or more boys ought to provide itself
with a ball-ground, and the Church and the whole
community ought to take a lively interest in it, keep
it in order, witness its games, and hurrah for its own
boys. If the Church will also add a tennis court, so
that the girls as well as the boys may play a game of
refinement and of recreation, it will add to its religious
efficiency.
A COMMUNITY TENNIS COURT AT A RURAL PARSONAGE
There is another and larger means of recreation
which the Church in the village or open country may
well foster. This is a kind of field-day for the whole
countryside — a revival of the old Olympic games and
festivities — a day of out-of-door sports: picnic, shoot-
ing-match, ball game, running match, and a popular
address on some phase of agriculture or rural social
life. Such a gathering insures that for one day in
228
RECREATION AND THE RURAL CHDRCH
midsummer the whole conntryside shall forget its
cares, ignore its work, disdain even its sterner duties
of life, as it unharnesses its youthful spirit, and out
in God's fields takes a merry-making, a da}/ of diver-
sion and fellowship, cf fun and laughter. It helps to
create the community spirit, and may lead to more
ambitious undertakings — a local fair ' or a course of
lectures in the interests of agriculture and rural
betterment.
The Monotony of Winter on the Farm
But the winter, the tedious winter on the farm!
Its nights so long and cold and dark, so different
from the light and airy gayeties, the theater-goings, the
concerts, the dances of the city! What shall we do
with them? How shall we at once banish their tedi-
ousness, fill them with joy and make them contribute
to the mental and spiritual worth of boy and girl, of
father and mother? The occasional card party and
dance break the monotony of country life in the
winter. Our young people, both of city and country,
often engage in these questionable amusements,
simply because nothing better is provided. Surely
the Church can give to that same life something that
is better worth while — a literary society, with social
features; a current-topic club, meeting from house to
house; a class in sociology, including the study of
social conditions and needs of their own community,
or a Bible-study class, which shall make its lessons
effective in the life of to-day. Whatever form our
recreational effort may take, we must see to it that
229
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
our young people have a reasonably good time, and
are genuinely interested in the local enterprise.
More efficient than any of these social gatherings
is the men's meeting, held in the church or its parlors.
There never need be a poor meeting, never an ordinary
one; always a big one, full of good things, brimming
over with richness. Put into it education and re-
ligion, laughter and fellowship, song and story. Let
it feed the whole nature. If the educational features
consist of instruction in subjects of vital local con-
cern, especially in agriculture and the rural institu-
tions and social activities, the interest of the men
will be awakened at cnce. There is no topic of such
absorbing interest at the present time as this of the
farm. A lecture on the care and tillage of the soil,
or how to make the old apple-orchard pay, or on the
extermination of weeds, or on birds, will always draw
a crowd of men and boys, especially if it is followed
by a social repast and a merrymaking.
Such gatherings not only banish some of the
monotony of the winter, they make our boys en-
thusiastic for farming. You know that the brightest
boys and girls used to flee from the farm, because
their minds and souls were starving there. There
was little in farm or neighborhood to quicken their
enthusiasm, to give them zest and zeal, little for the
mind to study, little for the soul to love; no variety,
no fascinations, no scientific experiments, few relaxa-
tions in the summer, and all relaxation in the winter,
and almost no absorbing and joyous interests. It is
the mission of the village and rural Church to make
230
RECREATION AND THE RURAL CHURCH
life in the rural districts worth living — rich in mental
and spiritual stimulations. These are the Church's
higher and larger duties toward recreation — to give
to its community something that shall re-create the
whole man, the soul no less than the muscles, enrich
life on the farm, and make it, as it should be, a po-
tential force in the social and spiritual guidance for
its country boys and girls, who are to be the scientific
and successful farmers and farmers' wives of the
future.
231
CHAPTER XIV
The Work of Women's Organizations
in the Rural Church
By Anna B. Taft,
Department of Church and Country Life, Presbyterian Church in
the United States of America, New York.
The strongest element in a weak country Church
is often its women's organization. It may not be
that the organization as such is well
constructed or established. Many
times such a backbone as a consti-
tution is a thing unknown. But it
is true that this is a dependable
group, standing the stress and strain
and struggle, time and again saving
the situation. Like woman herself,
it is to be depended upon in an
emergency and able to tide over a
difficult or impossible situation.
MISS TAFT
The Ladies' Aid Society a Type
The woman's society of most vital concern in the
country Church is that one frequently called "The
Ladies' Aid Society." There are, to be sure, flourish-
ing missionary organizations in country Churches of
232
THE WORK OF WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS
every denomination. In proportion to the wealth of
members, the largest and most generous gifts come
into the missionary treasuries from the rural Church:
gifts that mean sacrifice and self-denial far in excess
of the generous offerings from the larger Churches.
It is not, however, the missionary societies that are
our chief interest, because they have not the same
significance in relation to community conditions as
has "The Ladies' Aid Society," unless definite local
work is done under their auspices. In some cases the
missionary society is organized to carry on all the
benevolent and social work of the Church, and has
the three distinct divisions of home, foreign, and local
work. When this is so, the "local work" division is
that which corresponds to "The Ladies' Aid Society."
The same type of organization flourishes under
many names. Sometimes it is "The Women's Benev-
olent Association;" again, "The Women's Society;"
but most often it is simply "The Ladies' Aid." By
whatever name it may be called, this is the band of
women in the Church that does things. It is the or-
ganization that frequently raises the money to paint
the church and repair the parsonage. Sometimes it
comes to the rescue of a bewildered Church treasurer,
and hands over what is lacking on the minister's
pittance of a salary at the end of the year. In its
quiet and unostentatious way it feeds the hungry
and clothes the naked in the community. It is the
truest exponent of practical social service that can be
found in the country.
For example, in a certain small village having one
233
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Church, where the minister is paid a salary of $600 a
year, one-third of that amount is contributed annually
by "The Ladies' Aid Society." This money is raised
by a multitudinous array of suppers and fairs. These
have a far larger value than merely the raising of the
money. The suppers bring together all the people
of the community, many of whom never enter the
church; and the fairs, however one may question this
method of Church support, at least bring together
the women with their sewing for months preceding
this small event in social assembly. In spite of this
yearly drain upon their finances, this thrifty band of
women keep a good balance on hand for emergencies.
There have been no repairs made on church, chapel,
or parsonage in the last ten years that have not been
paid for by this women's organization. It has also a
committee to look after the poor of the village, and
there is no destitute family in that community, what-
ever the Church affiliations or lack of them, that it
has not tended and cared for and tided over many a
hard place in its history. This true and simple illus-
tration is no great exception to the rule. With vary-
ing details, this society is duplicated again and again
in the country Churches throughout the land.
I have in mind a union chapel that is ministered
to by four pastors of different denominations, each
taking one Sunday afternoon in the month. The
only unifying force in that mixed chapel organization
is its women's society. This conducts not only local
benevolent work, but also what little social life there
is in a destitute and unattractive village.
234
THE WORK OF WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS
To have so large a share in financing and carrying
on the Church is not always a good thing. It sug-
gests too much the woman as the supporter of the
family. In many cases she is doing the men's job,
and taking upon her shoulders a part of the Church
responsibilities that should belong to the men. For
this reason her self-sacrifice has not always a develop-
ing influence upon the Church. Yet the fact remains
that in many places the Church would go out of ex-
istence were it not for this support.
It was found, in surveying rural Church conditions
in three counties in Indiana, that of the Churches
having a resident pastor, 84 per cent have a "Ladies'
Aid Society." Such an organization is found in only
31 per cent of Churches without a resident pastor.
Whether it is this women's organization that makes
possible the supporting of a resident pastor, or whether
it is merely an indication of a prosperous and efficient
Church, it would be hard to say; but there is no ques-
tion but that the reflex influence of the "Ladies' Aid
Society" on the rural Church is very marked.
Because of the great importance of women's or-
ganizations in the country Church, it is a matter of
earnest consideration how they may become more
efficient and what is their best contribution in solving
the country Church problem.
The Women's Organization a Community Enterprise
I would suggest, first of all and most important,
that it become a community enterprise. The group
making up "The Ladies' Aid Society" is too often a
235
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
small club of the righteous. It is comprised of the
saints, the thoroughly worthy, the fine Christian
women within the fold of the Church. Although this
ministry may reach out to the needy in the locality,
it seldom does so in order to bring those women into
the organization. Its service is merely to minister to
a temporary affliction or necessity. Time after time
I have found that where a village is surrounded by a
farming population, only a very small proportion of
the membership of the women's organization is drawn
from the farmers' wives. Occasionally, where a
mother has lived in this locality for years and is a
member of the Church, she is in this group; but there
is an exclusiveness that prevents the coming in of
the poorer people who are living, perhaps, only tem-
porarily as tenants on the farm. This is not so true
where the incoming family purchases a home and
expects to live there permanently. Because of this
very distinction and the ignoring of the transient
element, there has grown up in many localities a
social caste which makes "The Ladies' Aid Society"
as exclusive in rural sections as an aristocratic women's
club in a town or city.
There is great possibility of democracy in women's
clubs and societies. Common work and common in-
terest makes it possible for all to mingle on terms of
equality. This has been proved time and again in
many organizations, more often in the larger towns
than in the small hamlets and villages, where the
social lines, though fewer, are more marked.
In the same Church before cited as an example,
236
THE WORK OF WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS
there was started a home department of the Sunday
school to reach the outlying districts. This gained a
membership of about thirty women, only one of whom
ever attended a meeting of "The Ladies' Aid So-
ciety," or had any part in its work. There is nothing
that brings a group of people more closely together
with greater sympathy than common work; and one
of the best things that the "Ladies' Aid Society" can
do for the local Church is to get into its active mem-
bership women who have never before had a part in
such an organization, and who have very little in-
terest in community life. With the increase of tenant
farming and the tendency that we are facing of a
shifting population, every tie that can hold a family
to a locality is important; and few things will help to
keep a woman where she is better than to have her
family sympathy enlarge itself to the bounds of a
community.
The Enlargement of the Field of Service
My second suggestion is that the field of service
of "The Ladies' Aid Society" should be greatly en-
larged. To have suppers and fairs to raise money for
the Church may be a good work; to help the needy in
a locality in time of emergency is better; but there
still exists a large field of community improvement
rarely, if ever, touched by this social service organ of
the local Church. In an efficient country Church —
that of Rev. Matthew B. McNutt, at DuPage, 111. —
the women's organization is known as "The Woman's
Missionary Society," and has in its care all of the
237
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
activities of the women in the Church. Once a
month this society discusses some practical problem
of common interest to the home. Such topics as
"The Care and Feeding of Children," "A Balanced
Ration," "How to Get Rid of the House-fly," and
similar ones are especially popular. Bulletins are
secured from agricultural departments, and much help
is given by the members in a free discussion of a com-
mon problem. This same organization has found it
cf particular value to hold all meetings at the homes
rather than at the church. Living in a farming ter-
ritory, with the houses at some distance, an all-day
session is common, and the men are sometimes invited
to the evening meal. Another interesting feature of
this same society is what is called "cleaning-up day,"
when the women gather at the church and the spring
house-cleaning for the church and chapel is done in
the form of a "bee," with much jollification and a
delightful lightening of a heavy task.
A women's organization in another Church has
under its charge the question of village improvement,
beautifying of streets, of cross-roads, and corners.
By its energy, a small remote village secured street
lights and housed a public library. Much of the work
dene in New England under the name of a Village
Improvement Association was undertaken by this
band of women as a direct part of their Church work.
There may well be fostered by "The Ladies' Aid
Society" the study of such practical subjects as rural
hygiene and sanitation. This is an important factor
in the health of the country and needs especial atten-
238
THE WORK OF WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS
tion, because of the lack of adequate public boards to
look after the health of the community, the question
of the disposal of sewerage, proper ventilation of
houses, and whatever public buildings the community
boasts.
Another subject of vital interest to the women of
the community is the question of the school and the
social and recreational life of young people. Where
there is no other organization promoting this, it
would be well for this group of mothers and advisory
maiden aunts to take up this important question as a
part of its work. In this way the younger women
cf the community can be brought into the society
and find a work much to their taste.
The Rural Problem a Unit
Increasingly, we are realizing that the problem of
the Church and of the community is one, and if the
women's organizations can be induced to emphasize
the needs of the community as a whole and to grapple
with this larger problem with the intensity and suc-
cess with which they are swinging their part of the
Church work, they will be a very large factor in the
solving of the country Church problem.
A Typical Rural Ladies' Aid Society
The picture on the next page is that of one of the
livest rural Ladies' Aid Societies in Ohio. Nearly all
the women, both young and old, in the township are
either active members or are incidentally associated
with the organization. Its meetings are community
239
THE WORK OF WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS
affairs, and its activities interest the whole countryside.
While the membership of the society is composed mostly
of the members of a particular Church, yet any woman
wishing to help work for the Church is admitted.
This particular society has a very interesting
round of regular activities. Regular "business"
meetings are held each month. The " quarterly tea"
occurs four times yearly, and is one of the really big
events in the social life of the community. The
society is divided into four groups, and one of these
entertains the other members of the society at each
of the quarterly meetings. A high-class literary
program, which includes readings, speaking, and
music, is always rendered. The literary program is
followed with refreshments. To defray the expenses
of these meetings, each member is assessed twenty-
five cents a year.
Socials and bazaars are held ''every now and then."
Carpet-rags are donated to the society for making
rugs and carpets; and out of old and odd pieces of
cloth, comforts and quilts are made. Embroidered
pillow-cases, aprons, and various other fancy and
practical articles are given, all of which are manu-
factured in the homes of the community.
Very practical means are provided for the indus-
trial education of the younger members of the society.
The entire organization will go to any home in the
community and sew for one afternoon for fifty cents,
and those members who do not attend this sewing-
bee are fined five cents each. The society conducts
sewing-bees of its own to make quilts, which are sold
16 241
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
at $5 each, and other articles. It knots comforts for
fifty cents each, or, if desired, will make the whole
comfort.
The society maintains a birthday fund. Each
member is expected to pay into this fund the sum of
five cents on each of her birthdays. Surely this is a
small sum to give as a thank-offering for life, health,
and happiness. A flower fund is also maintained, for
which each member is assessed one cent a month.
The money is used to purchase flowers for the sick
and the dead of the community.
The society pays yearly $50 of the preacher's
salary, pays the janitor of the church, aids in purchas-
ing new Church and Sunday school equipment, and
contributes toward paying for the insurance and in-
cidental repairs.
Although the regular activities of the society are
numerous, all of which are well adapted to the de-
velopment of the social life of the community, many
special functions are held as "side issues." Last
summer the members formed a ladies' baseball team
and played a team made up of women and girls from
two neighboring communities. The occasion at which
the game was played was a countryside picnic given
by the three rural Churches interested in the chief
amusement. Taffy-pullings are sometimes given dur-
ing the winter. All persons who attend the pulling
are expected to bring a pound of sugar. To these
events the men folks are sometimes invited to share
the pleasantries.
The president of the society says: "We once
212
THE WORK OF WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS
made a silk quilt, fan pattern. Each member was
supposed to make a block out of silk or satin and
solicit names to be put thereon at ten cents each.
These blocks were then joined together and worked
in fancy stitches. The quilt was afterwards sold at
auction to the highest bidder, and brought over a
hundred dollars."
243
CHAPTER XV
Rural Sunday School Efficiency
By L. 0. Hartman, Ph. D.,
Superintendent Department of Institutes and Intensive Work, The
Board of Sunday Schools of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, Chicago.
The welfare of the rural community depends
not simply on material prosperity, but also upon
those real yet indefinable idealistic
elements represented by the home,
the school, and the Church. With-
out these elements there can be no
permanent upbuilding of country
life and no real prosperity, even in
terms of material success. We are
told that the three most successful
classes of farmers are the Mormons,
the Pennsylvania Germans, and the
DR. HARTMAN „ . n , . , . ,
Scotch Presbyterians; and in each
case the community life is built around the institu-
tion of the Church. On the other hand, many illus-
trations could be given showing the disastrous effect
upon rural life brought on by the decadence of do-
mestic and religious ideals. In these cases the ele-
ment of permanency perishes with the loss of moral
244
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
and spiritual inspirations, and we have on hand the
temporary program of land speculations, renters, and
tenants, all of which spells ultimate rural failure.
So the Church appears to be vitally essential to the
highest and best country life.
Back of the Church, and part of it, is another in-
stitution without which the Church itself would be-
come weak and inefficient. That institution is the
Sunday school. Its importance in this respect is
made very evident when we contemplate some well-
proved statistics: 95 per cent of the ministers came
directly from the Sunday school; likewise, 90 per
cent of the best Church-workers; while an analysis of
Church membership shows unmistakably that at
least 85 per cent of them come from this same source.
The only denominations that have shown substantial
increases in membership during the past decade have
been those where the importance of the Sunday
school has been strongly stressed. More and more
thinking men are declaring that the future progress
and success of the Church depends upon careful re-
ligious education; and this is especially true in the
country, where opportunity presents itself on every
hand for thorough religious education and practical
social service.
1. Obstacles to the Progress of the Rural Sunday School
Certain obstacles, however, present themselves to
prevent the highest efficiency in the rural Sunday
school. Primarily, the country community is, of
course, naturally conservative. Nowhere is this con-
245
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
servatism better illustrated than in the conduct and
management of the Sunday school. Old ideals of re-
ligious education, old methods of organization and
instruction, old systems of lessons all prevail in the
majority of our rural Sunday schools. The institu-
tion seems to be "stuck in a rut." "We have always
done it so-and-so," is the stock argument against
innovation of any kind; and until this unreasoning
conservatism is broken down for the sake of better
methods and higher efficiency, the rural Sunday schocl
can not embrace its larger opportunity.
Another obstacle in the way of progress lies in
the adoption of "penny" pclicies. Cheapness is
the governing idea in too many cases where there
is a strong call for the best in the way of lesson
helps, of buildings adapted to proper instruction,
and of the larger opportunity for community better-
ment.
This leads to the thought of another obstacle, the
narrow view of the purpose of the Sunday school.
For generations the prevalent idea of Sunday school
work was embraced in the thought of a half or three-
quarters of an hour of instruction on Sunday by the
question-and-answer method. The Sunday school has
been dominated in the past by the thought that it
existed to indoctrinate the minds of its members.
The larger notion of religious education, embracing
not only the interests of the intellectual, but also
those of the volitional, the emotional, the social, and
even the physical lives of the people, has been, for
the most part, a foreign one. We need to get rid cf
246
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
the narrow vein in favor of the larger one if the rural
school is really to help the community.
Still another obstacle in the way of the country
Sunday school. is that of inefficient leadership.
2. Educational Efficiency
Turning now to the consideration of the oppor-
tunity lying before the country Sunday school for
real helpfulness to the community, the first great de-
mand appears to be that of a true educational effi-
ciency. The public schools are quite generally pre-
vented from doing the real work of religious education
in any large or vital way. If it is to be done at all,
the task must be undertaken by the Sunday school,
and inasmuch as the principles of both secular and
religious education are at bottom one, the Sunday
school must be organized for its work as carefully as
are the public schools for its task of daily instruction.
To do this, the meaning of religious education ought
to be well understood. It should have to do with the
enlargement and betterment of all life. If we think
of it narrowly, as simply related to the limited in-
tellectual apprehension of abstract truth, then a Sun-
day school ruled by such a conception will fall far short
cf its opportunity; but if the school be dominated by
the idea that religious education has to do with the
careful training of all the many sides of life and with
the preparation for real service to men here upon
earth in the upbuilding of the Kingdom of God, then
we shall have a truly efficient institution.
The first step to the end must be a trained teach-
247
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
ing force. The unprepared "volunteer" teacher will
not do. Nor can any amount of Christian good-
intention or even extended "experience" make up
for the lack of systematic training. The teacher ought
to be a real Bible student, not simply an adept in the
preparation of "next Sunday's lesson;" one who has
mastered the spirit of the Bible, who knows the con-
ditions under which it was written, and the larger
purpose of the various writings. He should be an
expert in the study of the developing minds under his
care; he should know the best methods of teaching;
he should be prepared to teach elsewhere than in the
class-room, by the methods of play, recreation, etc.,
between Sundays. A training class for Sunday school
teachers is a possibility in every rural school. In a
little Indiana circuit there is, in one of the Sunday
schools, a training class of four women. They had
no one to teach the class, so they took turns in teach-
ing themselves, and all this under the difficult cir-
cumstances of assembling regularly in spite of domes-
tic duties and time crowded with the strenuous de-
mands of farm life. The Methodist Episcopal Church
provides a series of correspondence courses especially
adapted to rural Sunday school teachers.1 This plan
has many obvious advantages. Each teacher may
take his course directly, without dependence upon a
class organization; he is not required to complete the
work in any given time, but may use his spare mo-
ments in preparing the lessons. The whole course is
1 For literature on Correspondence Courses write The Board cf Sunday
Schools, 1018-1024 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago, 111.
248
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
conducted by mail, and a diploma is awarded upon
the completion of the work. Thousands of rural
teachers are to-day preparing for service through this
correspondence system.
Lesson Systems. — It is also important, if the
country Sunday school is to be a school in fact as
well as in name, that the lesson system utilized
should be one in harmony with the best educational
principles. The prevalent system to-day is the one
known as the "uniform" system. It was conceived
and inaugurated for the purpose of systematic Bible
study, and arranged so as to complete the entire
Book in seven years. The whole school, irrespective
of age or attainment, is supposed to study the same
lesson on a given Sunday. "One lesson for all, every-
body studying the same lesson," represents in sub-
stance the uniform lesson system. It had, and has
yet, a strong appeal, but the idea is largely an abstract
one. We seem to be more concerned, on this plan, to
complete the study of the Bible according to system
than we are about the religious education of the child.
The beginner in the Sunday school has not the ca-
pacity to understand, nor any particular interest in,
the passages intended to explain and expound the in-
tricacies of the theological doctrine of the atonement,
much as such a theme might perhaps interest an adult
Bible class. So, while the uniform lessons have been
largely used, and many things may be said in their
favor, yet from the standpoint of the child's growing
mind we find that they are not adapted to the pur-
pose of efficient religious education. The new
249
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
"graded" lessons, however, are based on the idea
that the child's mind grows, and that it grows by
certain well-defined stages, which present particular
characteristics. Therefore, by the graded plan we
start with the child rather than with the Book, select-
ing and preparing lessons out of the Bible and from
other sources, such as Church history, history of
missions, nature study, etc., which shall be especially
adapted to the capacity, interest, and stage of devel-
opment of the child. Then we have not "one lesson
for all," but many different lessons for the different
grades. Every rural school ought to be thus care-
fully graded, and some good system of graded lessons,
such as the International, installed in the interest of
real educational efficiency.
Organization. — It can be successfully demonstrated
that the average Sunday school in the country is only
reaching about half its constituency. There are
literally hundreds of thousands of children in the
United States untouched by Sunday school influence.
For example, in New England alone there are 800,000
children outside the Sunday schools. Similar condi-
tions prevail all over the country. So the Sunday
school ought to enlist and influence a much larger
constituency than it now does. If it is to do this,
much attention ought to be given to organization,
especially to those departments designed to reach
those who are quite generally untouched by Sunday
school influence. The cradle-rcll, the home depart-
ment, and the adult Bible class can be made more
than to double the enrollment of the average rural
250
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
school; and these departments will do more to project
religious influence into the home and week-day life
of the community than any amount of mere per-
functory visitation. Instance after instance could be
cited where the little babe whose name appeared on
a "cradle-roll" became the means of enlisting parents
in Church attendance, which afterwards led to higher
ideals in the home and larger, richer life. Likewise,
the home department has linked many an indifferent
and careless soul to the Church and has given him a
larger conception of the meaning and purpose of life.
Every one knows of the far-reaching results wrought,
especially with men, through the adult Bible class
department. The school proper should, of course,
also be well organized by departments and grades, as
indicated above. Likewise, classes of young people
should be organized for social and recreative pur-
poses, as will be indicated later in this chapter.
Much also ought to be made of special days — such as
Rally Day, Christmas, Easter, Children's Day, etc.
For these occasions most careful preparation should
be made. The community should be thoroughly en-
listed, and an excellent program rendered. Parents
and children can then be brought together in a social
and religious atmosphere whose influence will be re-
membered and felt for months and even years through-
out the entire neighborhood.
Architecture and Equipment. — The average rural
school sorely lacks equipment. One room in the
country church serves for the preaching service, the
prayer-meeting service, the missionary meeting, and
251
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
the social affairs. The Sunday school must also use
this one room. This is a severe handicap to the best
work. Separateness is essential to real teaching,
especially if the school be a graded one, with the graded
lessons in use. We present herewith an ideal arrange-
ment for a Sunday school building of the modern
type, especially adapted to the needs of our day:
RL /W OF Q ROUND Ft OOR
Of course it is not always possible to secure an
ideal Sunday school building, such as the one indicated
in the sketches herewith shown, but with some modiri-
252
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
cations, this idea can be carried out. Where such a
building is not at all possible, a system of curtains
and poles may be installed in the country church,
and thus the necessary division made. This plan
MAIN AUDITOG'UM OF THC CHURCH
PLAN.OFMA/N FLOO&-
has been successfully carried out in many places, and
the scheme has not interfered with other services, as
the system can be so arranged that the parts may be
easily adjusted and removed within a short space of
253
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
time. Blackboards, tables, sand-maps, wall-maps,
charts, and models will all add to the efficiency of
religious education in these days when so much of
the work is done through the eye and the hand. But
MAIN AUDITORIUM OF THE CHURCH
PLAN OF GALLERY
good equipment, even though it may require a larger
expenditure than the school of the old days required,
is certainly essential, if the Sunday school is to do its
part for the larger welfare of the community.
254
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
3. Social Efficiency
The first great responsibility of the rural Sunday
school to the community is represented by this matter
of careful organization and religious instruction; but
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it should not be a religious instruction which is to
end with the Sabbath day or the individual. It should
have a larger outlook and purpose. Too long has the
narrowly individualistic conception of religion domi-
nated our thought. We have been greatly concerned
255
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
k 1> T>
256
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
with "the hereafter" and with the necessary prepa-
ration for this future state. Likewise we have
thought much about our own personal salvation.
Now while there is doubtless a world of truth in this
old individualism, and while we ought never to lose
sight of our own personal spiritual responsibility, yet
the very progress of the world is forcing Christian
people to the larger interpretation of the meaning of
the religious life. \Ye are seeing how interrelated are
all the interests of mankind, and how everything we
think or do has a bearing on the welfare of others.
The larger practical responsibility cf the Christian to
the community demands the consideration of all who
are earnestly striving to obey the Master. So the
Sunday school has a responsibility larger than that
of one day, larger also than the needs cf just one side
of life. It must become a real ministering agency, if
it is to fulfill its true purpose. The modern tendency
to class organization is one of the mcst hopeful indi-
cations cf the realization cf this social responsibility.
The boys' and girls' clubs and the adult Bible class
organizations indicate that the Sunday school is to
become helpful in a larger sense than ever before.
Some of the activities possible through such class
organizations might be mentioned. These illustra-
tions will serve to indicate general lines of service to
the rural community, and will remind Sunday school
leaders cf some of the local possibilities in their own
neighborhoods.
Larger Friendliness. — First ought to be mentioned
the chance which presents itself to the Sunday school
17 257
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
to contribute to the larger friendliness of the com-
munity. This opportunity was met to quite a large
extent in the old days. Just now, because of the
stern competition of business life, the multiplied at-
tractions, and the growth of population, it has been
somewhat lost to our vision. The old-fashioned
"singing-school," "spelling-school," "the husking-
bee," the "barn-raising" — all represented social gath-
erings of immense community value. Some of these
cr similar gatherings could be resurrected with profit.
Who does not remember the debating club of the
days gone by, and the long hours of argument, with
its "Honorable Judges" and its "Resolved, that fire
is more destructive than water?" On such occasions
men and women came to know each other intimately,
and the social instincts found wholesome expression.
Unfortunately in our own day such gatherings are
passing, and such expression is not so common as
heretofore. And yet the instinct still remains, and
nowhere so insistent as in adolescent boys and girls.
So strong is this craving for social intercourse that
it sometimes finds a way to realize itself in the low
dance, or in the gatherings of the saloon or the
street. Surely there is a high call for the Sunday
school through its organization, especially of the in-
termediate department, to meet this God-given crav-
ing, and make the Sunday school a center for gather-
ings that will satisfy and promote the larger friendli-
ness of the whole community. So can rural life be
made mere attractive, and the youth be induced to
remain on the farm.
258
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
Recreative Activities. — It is a ministry to the body
as well as to the soul that confronts the rural Sunday
school. Indeed, it is difficult to separate body and
soul in these days, when we are learning how inti-
mately the one is bound up with the other. The
Sunday school should, therefore, have something to
do in guiding the various activities that refresh and
revive the body and give new life to the mind. It is
remarkable how much even a poorly-equipped gym-
nasium will do to this end. In a certain Sunday
school such a " gymnasium" was provided for a boys'
club. It had just a punching-bag, and the rocm pro-
vided was only about 10 x 30 feet, and yet that little
room with the punching-bag kept twenty boys inter-
ested and provided satisfying recreation fcr them for
many months. There are the out-door activities,
such as tennis, golf, hockey, baseball, swimming,
hickory-nutting, and a hundred other kinds of play
and recreation. It may seem a far cry from all this
to the Sunday school, but we are learning how im-
portant it is that the child should learn to play — how
important even fcr the spiritual side of his life and
the larger development of a rounded character. Some
State Legislatures even have taken up this matter of
proper provision for the play-life cf childhood, and
have enacted laws pertaining to this matter.
The opportunity to guide young life into useful
pursuits also presents itself, and these likewise may
very well be classed as "recreative activities," for
such work can be made so attractive as truly to in-
spire. Too frequently the farmer boy or girl has
259
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
known only slavish drudgery; too seldom has he
known the real joy of self-expression and accomplish-
ment in work. The sewing-school, basket-making,
corn-raising, garden-growing, etc., represent some of
the possibilities. A Sunday school teacher can do
real teaching as he instructs each boy and girl how to
co-operate with God in growing the vegetables in his
or her own particular plot of ground.
Community Improvements. — The Sunday school
can become a most important factor in helping to
mold public sentiment for needed improvements.
The adult Bible class, through its organization and
committees, is especially fitted to help express the
will of God for humanity in such efforts as the con-
struction of good roads, the erection of public library
or hospital buildings, etc. The pastor and leading
laymen of a rural Church in Ohio spent several years
agitating the matter of better roads in their county,
until at last the people have awakened to the need
and begin to see what such improvement might mean.
Recently provision was made for an expression of
sentiment by ballot, and the improvement is now
assured. No better service can be done than this of
helping to make the country a pleasant, convenient,
and healthful place in which to live.
Reform Movements. — Likewise the adult Bible
class, representing the moral conscience of the people,
ought to be found active in originating and carrying
on much-needed reform movements. In a little rtiral
town in Illinois the teacher of an adult Bible class,
through his organization, was instrumental in starting
260
RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFICIENCY
an investigation of political corruption, which has
been followed during the past few years with intense
interest throughout the entire United States. In a
small town in Ohio an adult Bible class of one hundred
men changed the political aspect of an entire com-
munity, because the party which had been in power
for a generation refused to throw off the influence of
a corrupt bossism. In many another rural community
the adult classes cf men have fought victoriously
against intemperance, gambling, etc.
Social Problems. — A prominent organized class in
Northern Ohio has given itself for a number of months
to the study and practical solution of the problems
in its own neighborhood. This, too, is a high type of
service. Let the Sunday school ascertain through its
class organization what problems are affecting the
community. To this end a careful social survey as to
conditions of Church membership, child population,
crime, poverty, etc., ought to be made, that a first-
hand understanding of the local conditions may make
clear what remedies are required. The social evil,
for example, seems to permeate every neighborhood.
It is present, not only in urban life, but in rural life
as well. Lack of proper education in this matter is,
to a large extent, responsible for its widespread prev-
alence. If the Sunday school would earnestly under-
take to carry on a real campaign of education in this
matter, through the parents and in the school itself,
much might be done to overcome false modesty and
criminal neglect in this respect, and at least a partial
solution could be attained. The problem of poverty,,
261
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
too, needs to be studied — not merely with the idea oi
some temporary, immediate relief, but as to its deeper
causes and the possibilities of permanent cure.
Through the social suivey the exact conditions as to
poverty are to be ascertained. Then, through agita-
tion, friendliness, advice, etc., let a real attempt be
made to remove the causes and re-establish self-re-
spect. In some communities the immigration problem
is being solved by the Sunday school. One case is
conspicuous. A Wisconsin pastor in a little village
found upon his arrival a weak, struggling Church in
the midst of a community of Swiss immigrants. He
comprehended what was needed after a careful study
of the situation, and at once began to enlist the im-
migrant children. With such success has he done
this that not only the children, but also the older
people, have been attracted to this Church. The re-
sult is that so far as that community is concerned, the
immigration problem is being solved through the
Sunday school. The children, and in large measure
the adults, are being Americanized and Christianized.
There are such opportunities as these, and many also
of other kinds in every community, which are calling
to-day to the Church and Sunday school.
The crux of the rural problem is with the young
life. Educate, train, Christianize — that, and the great
question is more than half solved. The Sunday school
is the important and strategic institution for this
work, but unless the task is undertaken earnestly,
and the very best provision made and the most ap-
proved methods utilized, all efforts will fail.
262
CHAPTER XVI
The Work of the County Y. M. C. A.
in Building Rural Manhood
By B. R. Ryall, A. B., M. Sc,
State Secretary of County Work, Ohio Y. M. C. A., Columbus.
The maintenance of a strong, virile manhood in
rural America is absolutely essential to the future
welfare of our country. This man-
hood is threatened. The findings of
the recent Ohio rural life survey have
only added to previous evidence, and
show rural conditions to be more
serious than even those best in-
formed have been willing to admit.
Despite the assertions of some of our
city friends to the contrary, the
country boy has been, and will con-
SECRETARY RYALL . L-Ux.i_i.it. r •*.
tmue to be, the backbone ot city
life. It is not difficult to see, then, the need of a
strong constructive program and agency to build up
rural life. Such a program is needed, in the first
place, for rural life in and of itself: in the second
place, that the country boys who go to the city — and
we must justly expect some to go — shall go with the
263
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
right kind of moral and physical liber to stand up
under the terrific strain of modern city life.
1. The Field of the County Y. M. C. A.
It is in this important and interesting work that
the rural or county Young Men's Christian Associa-
tion is engaged. The field consists of more than
12,000,000 boys and young men who are living in the
open country or in towns of 4,000 or less. It includes
more than 60 per cent of the boys and young men of
the nation. The Young Men's Christian Association
seeks to unite these young men, for the purpose of
improving their own conditions physically, socially,
mentally, economically, and spiritually, and of giving
expression to these improvements in community life.
In 1872, in DuPage Township, Will County,
Illinois, Robert Weidensall, the pioneer and seer of
Young Men's Christian Association work, organized
the first rural Ycung Men's Christian Association.
Soon after another was organized in Mason County,
Illinois, under volunteer leadership. These organi-
zations did not live long, but their experience gave
Weidensall the foundation upon which to build future
rural work. While this organization has since made
a steady growth, it was not until 1906, however,
that the International Young Men's Christian Asso-
c iation Committee recognized it as a regular depart-
ment of Young Men's Christian Association work.
Out of the trials and testings of a pioneer work there
has come, after thirty-live years' experience, a now
rapidly-growing organization, which enlists in sixty*
264
THE WORK OF THE COUNTY Y. M. C. A.
one counties two thousand and more leaders and
committeemen, and twenty-five thousand boys who
are engaged in its activities. In a very humble way,
the movement is glad to pass on to others, co-workers
in this field, some of the experiences of these thirty-
five years.
The unit of operation is the political county;
hence the term, "County Work." The unit cf organ-
ization is a group of business men called the county
committee, who are responsible for the extension of
the work throughout the county. These men are
men cf large influence in the county, capable either
cf financing the work themselves, or better, of com-
manding the financial support of others. They are
men of such caliber that they can sit at one time as a
county educational commission, at another as a county
health commission, at another as a committee under
whose leadership the various religious denominations
may freely unite in community or county-wide move-
ments; at other times they may be called on to act
as a commission to consider the juvenile problems cf
the county.
2. The Organization and Methods of Work
A vital factor in the success cf this work is the
county secretary, an expert retained by the county
committee to act as its executive agent on the field.
This man must be one cf large vision and broad
training. He must be a man whose vision has net
been seared by the glitter and glare of the city; a
man who loves the country in and of itself. He must
265
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
be one who is not afraid to break away, when neces-
sary, from the conventional way of doing things, even
though by so doing he arouses the conservatism and
even bitter opposition of a certain class. He is, of
necessity, not a leader of the masses, but a leader of
leaders. In no other department cf Young Men's
Christian Association work — I might say of religious
work — is there so large a proportion cf college-trained
men. Practically every man in county work to-day
is a college graduate, many not coming directly into
county work from college, but from other fields, where
they have previously met with conspicuous success.
The reason for the success of the county Young
Men's Christian Association can, in a large measure,
be found in the consecration of these men. Their
hearts are in the work. They are not using it as a
stepping-stone to a city field. Though they have re-
ceived many tempting calls to enter other work, few
care to leave.
Co-operation is the real program of the county
Young Men's Christian Association. It does not de-
sire to work for the strengthening of its own organiza-
tion at the expense of others. The county committee
receives its support from the people, and it regards
itself primarily as a servant of the people. The sec-
retaries on the field have endeavored in all ways pos-
sible to co-operate with the existing organizations.
Sometimes the secretary has co-operated with the
superintendent cf schools in systematizing and devel-
oping the recreational and athletic life of the schocl,
in some cases by working up a program of indoor and
266
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
outdoor games that the teacher can use to advantage
during the recess periods. He has worked with the
Granges and other agricultural societies in organizing
short practical schools for the farmers. As the Sunday
school superintendent's right-hand man, he finds
teachers for boys' classes in the Sunday school. The
county Sunday school secretary finds him a friendly
advisor, too, in setting up the county Sunday school
convention. Through his personal work many
fathers and mothers have been brought into more
intelligent relationship with their boys and girls. In
doing these things, the secretary has been a servant
of the people, and he has accomplished more than he
could have accomplished had he confined himself to
the narrow limits cf an organization. Because of its
intradenominational character, the county Young
Men's Christian Association is peculiarly fitted to
become a unifying factor in the county. It recognizes
its opportunity and responsibility. Because of this
characteristic, there are certain activities that the
Young Men's Christian Association can undertake
and carry to a successful issue, which, undertaken by
any one denomination of the community, would be
doomed to failure, because of sectarian opposition
inevitably aroused.
3. Principles in Rural Work
Out of past experience, brief as it has been, the.
county Young Men's Christian Association has come
to recognize certain established principles which must
be considered in rural work.
268
THE WORK OF THE COUNTY V. M. C. A.
1. The redemptive forces of a community are the
local foices. This brings us back directly to volunteer
leadership. The problems of any individual commu-
nity will never be solved until some local man vol-
unteers to get under the burden. To discover and to
inspire and help this man, by giving him the right
kind of training and the right vision of his relation
to God and to man, is the large task of the county
secretary.
2. The country must be guarded from the ener-
vating paternalism of the city.
3. We must have rural institutions to meet rural
needs. A city library will not fit into rural condi-
tions. We could not transfer a city play-ground into
a rural community and expect it to be a success.
But there must be developed, out of the peculiar recre-
ational needs of the country, an institution to meet
those peculiar needs.
4. Equipment is not essential, and is generally a
serious stumbling-block to successful boys' work in
the country. The personality of leadership is the
all-important factor.
5. There should be a recognition of the value of
country life in and for itself.
6. The county Young Men's Christian Association
recognizes three primary social groupings in the
country — the home, the school, and the Church.
Never has the county Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciation thought of itself as a competitor of the Church,
but rather as an auxiliary, whose primary function is
to help build up the Church of Christ.
269
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
7. This work will not be successful, save as those
who enter, either as employed officers or as vol-
unteers, consider the work essentially a Christian
ministry.
8. Service, not privilege, is the basis of mem-
bership.
9. Determined effort to stem the cityward tide.
10. A redirected educational system which will
adequately prepare for life in the country.
11. Better health and sanitation in farm homes
and country communities.
12. Wholesome recreational activities are needed
in all parts of the country.
13. A more scientific method of crop production
and farm administration is essential to a greater sat-
isfaction in farm life.
14. Co-operation, rather than competition.
15. A task for every man, and a man for every
task.
4. The Group Method of Organization and Activities
The boys throughout the country are reached by
means of local boys' groups, which are generally rec-
ognized as the Young Men's Christian Association.
These groups are organized not only in larger towns
and villages, where in many cases we may find several
groups, but also at the country cross-roads com-
munity, or at any place which may be a natural
community center. In this organization the first
factor is the securing of a local leader who will be re-
sponsible for the work of that community. He must
270
THE WORK OF THE COUNTY Y. M. C. A.
necessarily be a man of strong moral character, one
who commands the respect of the community and of
the boys, and who is fully in sympathy with boy-life.
This man gathers around him a group of boys, twelve
to twenty in number, who are drawn together by
mutual likes and dislikes — in other words, a gang.
The "gang spirit" will not be so marked among the
country boys as among the boys of the city cr large
village, but it is there. As the county secretary wcrks
with leaders, so this local leader will hold his boys
only as he holds the leader of the gang. This grcup
generally meets once a week in seme convenient place:
it may be the schoolhouse, cr the town hall, or the
basement of the church — if there be but cne church
in the community — or often they meet at the home
cf one of the members of the group. At these meet-
ings the boys engage in various social, athletic, edu-
cational, and religious activities.
Social Activities. — Lack of social life is recognized
by all students of rural life as one of the most serious
drawbacks of the country. A more normal develop-
ment of social life is essential. The rural Young
Men's Christian Association in its organized counties
has done much along this line. The boys' groups,
with their weekly meetings, furnish the means of
social contact. In many places the boys have ar-
ranged community banquets; they have planned
many special social evenings at the homes of the vari-
ous members. The girls, as well as the boys, are
reached by these social activities. Through the initia-
tive of the Young Men's Christian Association there
271
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
has been a revival of the old-time "spelling-bee" and
other community social gatherings. The various
reading circles and study clubs have their social values.
The direct responsibility for these activities must
not rest on the county secretary. The full value of
this work can be realized only as the local people
take up the enterprise, aided perhaps by the inspira-
tion and suggestion of the secretary. I fear that too
often many of our well-meaning pastors and teachers
have worked injury where they have intended to
help, because they have done the work themselves,
thereby robbing the people of their birthrights — initia-
tive and responsibility.
Recreational and Athletic Activities. — Our farm
boys and girls work hard. They may not need physical
exercises, but they do need play. Play is the inherited
right of all young life, and child-life will not develop
into normal manhood and womanhood without it.
Farmers must learn to work together. Practically
all recognize the truth of this, but they must also
recognize that farmers will never work together until
they and their children have learned to play together.
The rural Young Men's Christian Association is
meeting this need in its organized play-day festivals
held in connection with the schools, Sunday school
picnics, township picnics, or in connection with the
county fair. In many places the county Young
Men's Christian Association has been instrumental in
cleaning up the objectionable features of the fair.
Thousands of people, old and young, have joined in
these county fair play festivals; they forget for a
272
THE WORK OF THE COUNTY Y. M. C. A.
while the cares of the farm and become young again.
The boys' groups furnish opportunity for many group
games, calisthenics, and athletics. Practically every
county has its annual track meet, with from eighty
to three hundred boys participating in each county.
Clean baseball is also promoted, putting emphasis on
the Saturday afternoon games, thus eliminating to
vsome extent the demand for the Sunday game. "Play
baseball for sport, to win if you can, but play square
and clean," is the slogan of the Young Men's Chris-
tian Association. All of the county organizations con-
duct summer camps, where from fifty to one hundred
or more country boys spend ten days in the happiest
fellowship of their lives. These days mean much in
the formation of Christian character.
Educational Activities. — Our children need supple-
mental educational work. The schools have become
more or less mechanical. They are often divorced
from life ; their method of study is not always nature's
method. The boys in the groups join in debates, give
reports of current topics and of books they have read.
They listen to interesting talks on nature, such as
"Nature's Methods for the Distribution of Seeds,"
'The Interesting Characteristics of Our Native Birds
and Their Calls," etc. They engage in hundreds cf
different educational activities which interest and
hold the boy, because they vitally connect him with
life roundabout. There are other features of educa-
tional work more especially applicable to the com-
munity as a whole, such as practical, short-period
schools for the farmer, educational campaigns along
13 273
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
the lines of personal hygiene, reading courses and
clubs, agricultural contests, in which the boys and
girls compete with each other in the growing of corn,
onions, potatoes, poultry, etc. In one county, with
a population of only two thousand, there were three
hundred and thirty-eight children engaged in agri-
cultural contests during one season. Then again,
there is the opportunity for boys to take part in the
competitive judging of stock, corn and small grains,
etc. All this work is intensely vital, and will have a
large part in keeping the boy and the girl on the
farm.
The county Young Men's Christian Association,
in co-operation with the schools, has conducted very
successful educational campaigns along the line of
personal hygiene. The care of the body, the effects
of alcoholic stimulants, and personal sex hygiene has
been the line of subjects considered. These cam-
paigns have met with the unanimous approval of the
people. There have been other educational campaigns
conducted along the lines of community sanitation,
the beautifying of school grounds and of home
grounds.
Let us reiterate the principle upon which this work
is conducted. The county secretary does not attempt
to do this work himself, but enlists the co-operation
of other men of the community, or even sometimes
outside of the community, who are qualified to do the
special piece of work he has in mind. This is working
out the very essential principle, "A task for every
man, and a man for every task."
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SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
Religions Work. — The religious work of the Young
Men's Christian Association is the primary work.
It regards the social, physical, and educational work
as essential only as they create right conditions for
the fullest development of the spiritual. Every one
of the six hundred organized boys' groups is following
definite courses of Bible study. Recruited from these
groups are the young men who go back into the
Sunday school as Bible class teachers. It is a virile
type of Bible study, in which the leader projects
himself in personal work. There are but few boys
who, if approached with a boy's religion, will not ac-
cept it. Other features of the religious work are
special Sunday afternoon meetings for men; and at
other times special meetings for boys. Many men
will attend these meetings who never come to any
other. The county and State boys' conferences are
great factors in giving the boys a new and higher
conception of Christian manhood, and many have ac-
cepted the challenge of such a manhood. One of the
largest factors in this, as in other fields of religious
work, is the quiet, personal evangelism of the sec-
retary and the volunteer workers. The co-operation
of the county Young Men's Christian Association
with the Sunday schools is also to be considered under
religious work. In many counties the secretaries have
been of vital help in adding to the efficiency of the
Sunday school convention. One county secretary
suggested, and successfully carried through, a men's
banquet and evening program in connection with
such a convention. More than one hundred and
276
THE WORK OF THE COUNTY Y. M. C. A.
fifty men were present. This was accomplished in
the face of many discouragements. The secretary
in many places has been of help in conducting train-
ing conferences for leaders of boys' classes.
The work of the various county organizations has
the advantage of the co-operation and help of both
the State and the international committees. These
committees are of help to the county secretary in
formulating his plans. They are free to come in and
help the secretary whenever he requests. They are
also of help to the county committee at the time of
secretarial changes. The large task of the State and
international committee, however, is the extension of
work into unorganized counties and States.
The first step to be taken by those interested in
organizing a movement of this character in their own
community is to secure the interest and co-operation
of the best men of the county. These men may con-
stitute a temporary organization committee, and
should have as their chairman the best man avail-
able. He should be a man of large influence, good
business judgment, and of the right Christian
character. Those undertaking this organization
should get in touch with the county work depart-
ment of the State Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciation Committee, that they may profit by its
experience.
We have outlined a large program. While we
have not gone into much detail as to the actual work
of the rural Young Men's Christian Association, yet
enough has been mentioned to give a general outline
277
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
of its scope and effectiveness. This work will succeed
in any county where the people will give their co-
operation. There must be the local man, who will
give of his time because he loves boys, his com-
munity, and his God.
278
CHAPTER XVII
The Young Woman's Christian Asso-
ciation as a Builder of Rural
Womanhood
By Miss Jessie Field,
National Secretary for Small Tcnun and Country Work, National
Board of the Y. W. C. A. of the U. S. A., New York City.
The Young Women's Christian Association has
as its ideal the development of all young women in
spirit, mind, and body. So it is
but natural that it should, in 1908,
decide to reach out beyond the
limits of the cities, the factories,
and the college halls to the thou-
sands of young women living in the
small towns and the open country.
1. The Organization of the County
Y. W. C. A.
The county is taken as the unit
of organization, since it offers a
natural civil and community division, and has a large
enough area to make a basis for financial support.
The executive head of the work is the county sec-
retary, back of whom is the county Board of Direc-
279
MISS FIELD
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
tors, made up of representative Christian women
from different parts of the county. Wherever there
is a community center of sufficient strength and local
leadership to form an association of twenty-five young
women, a branch organization is formed. This branch
may be in a town or out in the open country.
The young woman in the country has many ele-
ments of great strength. She is blessed in having
freedom, a wholesome and sane life, and a knowledge
of happy work. Improved country life conditions
have brought to her many splendid things from the
outside world. The rural free delivery brings the
daily paper and good magazines. Better roads, the
automobile, and the interurban and trolley lines help
her easily to reach the town and city, while modern
conveniences and better prices for crops have made
the eld home a happy and profitable place to live.
2. Methods of Carrying on the Work
The country girl has wonderful possibilities for
growing into the most complete and helpful woman-
hood. It is to help her in reaching these possibilities
that the Young Women's Christian Association has
organized its country and small town work. It is
the purpose of this organization to work with and
help strengthen and increase the results of every or-
ganization that has for its purpose the development
of life in the open country. The Grange, the farmers'
institute, the extension departments of the State
colleges of agriculture, the United States Department
of Agriculture, short-course organizations, domestic
280
THE Y. W. C. A.
science clubs, and, above all, the country Church,
furnish the organizations through which and with
which the Young Women's Christian Association
works in uplifting and helping the young women of
the country.
There are no association buildings, as in the city,
for it has been found that the homes of the com-
munity and the schoolhouses and churches can well
accommodate the meetings, and so there is an added
usefulness given to these established parts of the
community. There are many definite lines cf work
undertaken to adgl to the efficiency of the work of
country girls, to the happiness of their play and social
intercourse, to the strength and health of their bodies,
and to the vital consecration of their lives to the
service of Christ.
Working through the country schools, the county
secretary helps the country teachers to plan for
simple lessons in sewing and cooking and personal
hygiene, which can be taught to the girls in her
school or to a club of girls taking in all the girls of the
school district. Many schools have planned, too,- for
serving simple warm lunches at noon, with soup or
cocoa, and so the girls learn simple lessons in home-
making, which will help them throughout life. In
sewing they learn to patch and darn and do just the
simple, homely tasks in the right way.
The idea of making the country school the social
center of the community has been strengthened.
Corn shows and exhibits of sewing and cooking cf the
girls of the neighborhood are made at the schools,
281
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
the parents being invited in and the girls serving re-
freshments, which they have prepared themselves.
The program is planned to be of special interest to
country people. In all this the county secretary is of
help in giving suggestions and helping put the teacher
in touch with efforts along these lines that are meet-
ing with success in other places.
CORN SUNDAY
Exhibits of model kitchens, handy devices for
lightening labor at home, cooking, and sewing are
made at the farmers' institute or the county fair.
Potato-growing contests are held. Butter and bread-
making contests and the judging of these foods has
been made a part of the county work. Often the
girls doing the best work along these lines are sent to
282
THE Y. W. C. A.
the short course of home economics at the State
College of Agriculture.
In co-operation with country Churches, "corn
Sundays and Mondays" have been held, where the
farmers and their wives and sons and daughters have
brought in the best things they have grown or made.
The exhibits are made in the church on Sunday. It is
altogether befitting that the products of the farm
should be displayed in the house of God, in gratitude
for a bountiful harvest. No live minister will lose
the opportunity to emphasize spiritual lessons at
this occasion. The practice is at once a recognition
of Divine Providence and a dedication of husbandry,
which may lead to the consecration of the husband-
man. On Monday teachers come from the extension
department of the State College of Agriculture to
judge the exhibits, and a basket-dinner and a general
good social time are held, and some hours of definite
instruction on things coming very close to country
life efficiency are spent.
Summer camps have been organized and most
successfully carried out for the young women of the
country in connection with the county Chautauqua
Associations. Bible study, practical talks on subjects
of interest to girls, lessons in cooking and sewing, and
first aid to the injured are a part of the camp work.
The afternoons are devoted to having a good time
with games of tennis, volley ball, basket ball, and
informal visiting. The campers are allowed also to
attend the lectures at the Chautauqua. This means
not only learning more about how to do useful things,
283
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
but the creating of a spirit of fellowship and good-
will with girls from all over the county, that brings a
broader vision of life to the country girl, whose life
in many cases is isolated.
Bible study and mission study classes are organ-
ized, taking in all the young people of the com-
munity. Courses of study of special interest to the
community are followed, and at the close of each
lesson some short feature of interest to the young
people of the country is given, and then a social time
together is enjoyed.
Since the county is so large that the county sec-
retary can not lead all the groups, there is constantly
a direct demand for local leaders. This helps to de-
velop one of the greatest needs of our rural commu-
nities— trained leadership. Many a country young
woman has found that she could do things for others,
because of the responsibility placed on her in the
work of the Association. As these young women of
all Church denominations come together in Bible
study or in the right kind cf a good time, the narrow
boundaries that sometimes hedge around the lives of
the young people in the country disappear, and a joy
in the service of others takes its place.
Through all the work of the Association the
beauty and possibilities of the Christian home in the
country, built on a modern plan, with all the latest
conveniences for lightening labor, surrounded by a
well-kept lawn with flowers and vines growing on it,
is brought in a very real way to the girl. She learns
to truly love the open country, and can help the young
2X1
COUNTRY GIRLS' SUMMER CAMP VILLAGE
COUNTRY CAMP GIRLS OUT ON A FROLIC
COUNTRY CAMP GIRLS RECEIVING INSTRUCTION IN DOMESTIC
SCIENCE
SOLVING THE COUNTRY CHURCH PROBLEM
man who has learned to grow more corn and better
stock to spend wisely the increased earnings from
his farm, to the end that there may be better schools,
homes, Churches, and communities in which boys and
girls may grow up who will represent the highest type
of American citizenship.
286
Appendix A
A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE
COUNTRY CHURCH
Ashenhurst, J. O.: "The Day of the Country Church," pp. 208,
1910. Funk and Wagnalls Company, New York.
Beard, Augustus Field: "The Story of John Frederick Oberlin,"
pp. 196, 1909. The Pilgrim Press, Boston.
Butterfield, Kenyon L.: "The Country Church and the Rural
Problem," pp. 153, 1911. The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago.
Gill, Otis C, and Pinchot, Gifford: "The Country Church,"
pp. 12 + 222, 1913. The Macmillan Company, New York.
Hayward, Charles E.: "Institutional Work of the Country
Church," pp. 149, 1900. Free Press Association, Bur-
lington, Vt.
Israel, Henry: "The Country Church and Community Co-,
operation," pp. 165, 1913. Association Press, New York.
Miller, George A.: "Problems of the Town Church," pp. 201,
1902. Fleming H. Revell Company, Chicago.
Roads, Charles: "Rural Christendom," pp. 322, 1910. Ameri-
can Sunday School Union, Philadelphia.
Tipple, E. S.. "Some Famous Country Parishes," 1911. Eaton
and Mains, New. York.
Wilson, Warren H.: "The Church of the Open Country," pp.
226, 1911. Missionary Education Movement of the United
States and Canada, New York.
"The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science," for March, 1912, contains articles of the Country
Church and many other rural problems.
287
APPENDIX
RURAL MAGAZINES
The following rural magazines are recommended to those
who desire to keep in touch with the progress of the Rural Move-
ment, including the Country Church:
The Rural Educator, a National Monthly Magazine,
Devoted to the Promotion of Rural and Agricultural Education
for Teachers, Preachers, Rural Leaders, and Progressive Farmers.
Published from The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
Rural Manhood, Devoted to the Country Work of the
Young Men's Christian Association in Village, Town, and
Country. Published by the Young Men's Christian Associa-
tions, 124 East Twenty-eighth Street, New York, N. Y.
288
Appendix B
HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL REPORT OF
THE LAWRENCE CIRCUIT FOR 1913
Compiled by Rev. Albert Z. Mann, A. M.,
Pastor of the Lawrence (Ind.) Circuit.
Editor's Note. — The problem of every rural minister is to
know his field — not in general terms, but specifically. To this
end, a community survey is necessary.
The data thus secured must then be system-
atized, tabulated, and correlated. Only
then does it furnish a safe guide for future
activities. Inability to use the data when
once secured may prove to be a very seri-
ous misfortune to a community. In order
to show the proper method of procedure
in building up survey information as a
guide to action, we herewith present, as
Appendix B, a concrete example.
The conditions here presented may be
accepted as a typical example of a rural
community in the States of the Middle West.
ALBERT Z. MANN
Statistics of the Lawrence Charge
I. Territory Covered.
25 Square miles,
16,000 Acres,
75 Miles Road System.
II. Population.
1,500 approximate population.
450 families.
3.33 average number per family.
10.2 average acreage per individual.
48 per cent own their homes.
52 per cent are renters.
19 289
APPENDIX
III. Churches Represented.
1. In the territory of the Circuit.
Lawrence: Bethel and Arlington Place Methodist
Episcopal Churches; Lawrence Baptist,
Highland Lutheran, and Bell's Chapel
(Friends).
2. Churches near and having members living within
the Circuit.
Oaklandon Christian and Universalist Churches;
Cumberland Methodist Episcopal, Baptist,
and German Churches; Irvington Methodist
Episcopal Church, Indianapolis; East Tenth
Methodist Episcopal and German Churches;
Ebenezer Lutheran Church.
IV. Church Membership.
1. Representative Denominations.
No. Church. Members. Preference.
1. Methodist Episcopal.. 295 165
2. Lutheran 63 10
3. Baptist 47 18
4. German 32 12
5. Christian 27 11
6. Catholic 21 7
7. Pentecostal 17
8. United Brethren 11 4
9. Universalist 11 6
10. Friends 10 6
11. Presbyterian 6 2
12. Congregational 5 4
13. Church of Christ 5 2
14. Christian Scientist ... 5
15. Episcopalian 4
16. Adventist 2
2. Totals for Church Membership.
a. Total Church Membership 621
b. Total Church Preference 247
c. Total No Church Preference 635
Total Population 1,503
290
ROAD AND RESIDENCE MAP
or
THE LAWRENCE CIRCUIT
1ARVON COUNTY INDI-
EXPLANATORY NOTE
— IflOOO ACRC8
.awrcncc is iiscmeo- i milc -73 wiuce wad srorc*
TOTAL NUMBER «E«'DCNCE5 *«0 TflTAW PAPULATION iffOO
MAP OrUAWTCNCt
<MM 301 ft OMA 0
TSUOfllO 30M3AWAJ 3HT
APPENDIX
V. Statistics for the Local Methodist Episcopal
Churches.
1. Members on field at beginning of Conference
year, 1912 212
2. Members uniting with the Church to July
1, 1913 70
3. Persons desiring to unite with the Church at
present 13
4. Total members now living within the bounds
of the Circuit 295
5. Members now living outside of the bounds of
the Circuit 28
6. Total membership of the three Churches of
the Circuit 323
VI. Opportunities for Growth in Membership.
1. Number moved into this charge without letter. 50
2. Number of residents preferring the Methodist
Episcopal Church 165
3. Total preferring Methodist Episcopal Church. 215
4. Total number having no Church preference. . 635
5. Total number open to the influence of the
Methodist Episcopal Church 850
VII. Auxiliary Organizations of the Three Methodist
Episcopal Churches.
1. Present Organizations.
a. Three Sunday Schools, enrollment 350
Increase for the year 70
b. Three Epworth Leagues, enrollment .... 85
Increase for the year 65
c. Three Ladies' Aid Societies, enrollment. . 80
Increase for the year 20
2. Organizations needed.
a. Three Men's Organized Classes or Methodist
Brotherhoods. This would complete symmetric-
ally the Church organizations.
291
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