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diff --git a/old/74857-0.txt b/old/74857-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fb33474..0000000 --- a/old/74857-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2200 +0,0 @@ - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74857 *** - - - - - -EMPTY CHURCHES - - - - -_By the Same Author_ - - - RURAL LIFE - RURAL SOCIAL PROBLEMS - - - - - EMPTY CHURCHES - - _THE RURAL-URBAN DILEMMA_ - - BY - - CHARLES JOSIAH GALPIN - - IN CHARGE OF THE DIVISION OF FARM POPULATION AND RURAL LIFE, - BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, - UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. - - [Illustration] - - THE CENTURY CO. - - _New York & London_ - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY - THE CENTURY CO. - - PRINTED IN U. S. A. - - - - - _In Memory of_ - MY FATHER AND MOTHER - _Who Spent Their Lives - In Loving Ministration in - Country Parishes_ - - - - -PREFACE - - -This little book invites you to read it at a single sitting. If read -later, a section at a time, in the light of the whole story, it will -give you a better account of itself. It is, I frankly acknowledge, -written out of emotion. It does not therefore, I fear, contain all the -words it implies--half the time falling into symbols and incidents to -force a meaning; half the time taking for granted that you do not care -to open or close every side gate along the way. - -The view of a layman, as this easily betrays itself to be, may prove -something of a shock to the rank and file of the clergy; but it will -serve, at least, to show that a section of laymen take religion more -seriously after all than they do economics, which forms their daily -adventure. Deep in our hearts, many of us know that business is the -great masculine sport of the age; and in comparison, the rôle of -the priest and pastor and the function of the church lie in the far -different realm of the heroic. If I seem in this essay to expect too -much of the church and too much of the preacher, my only apology is my -inability to read into the Four Gospels, that stand on my desk along -with the other tools of life and work, a philosophy of ease or of -complacent _laissez faire_. - -Although a confirmed lover of the country, the farm, the farmer and -his children, I am none the less a firm believer in the city--its -necessity, function, and destiny. Rural social welfare, as I see it, -is of utmost concern to the American city. This is why empty churches -along the countryside bring tragedy to city and country alike. This -is why ecclesiastical statesmen should go to the country and see -with their own eyes the havoc wrought upon the farmer’s family by -competitive religion among Protestants. - -And this is all the little book sets out to do--to take everybody to -the rural communities with wide-open eyes, to see the empty churches, -the children without God, the farm tenants without religion, the -parsons on the run for the city, and the beginnings of a new type of -rural church. - -I wish gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness in this essay to -the staff of the Institute of Social and Religious Research, New -York City, upon whose authoritative statements I have much relied. -To the Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia, I desire to express -appreciation for their kindness in allowing me to reproduce here -materials which have appeared in “The Country Gentleman” during the -past year. - - C. J. GALPIN. - -March, 1925. - - - - -EMPTY CHURCHES - - - - -EMPTY CHURCHES - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -Recently, in a cross-roads country church, a minister of the Gospel, -underpaid, somewhat shabby, but eager and inspired, a man with a -message to give, stood before his congregation to present that message. -The flame of inspiration in his haggard young face flickered and died -as he looked down at the scanty congregation assembled before him to -hear the Word of God. At a glance he counted his handful of hearers. -Six. - -Through a window on one side of the little church, he could see -two other meeting-houses nestling in the curve of the road. Through -a window on the other side, he looked out at a third--four country -churches of four Christian denominations, almost identical in doctrine, -there within two stone’s-throws of one another. - -In three of these churches, including his own, he knew that the members -of the congregation might be counted upon the fingers of each pastor’s -two hands. The third church was closed that day; its flock could afford -only an occasional shepherd. - -In all four of those churches put together, not one fair-sized -congregation. In all four, not one pastor paid a salary large enough to -enable him to live on his income as a minister. In all four, men and -women taxed by religion beyond their ability to pay, yet unable to -support their church without outside aid. - - -_Jealous Denominations_ - -The young minister thought with pain of other sections of the country -through which he had traveled all day without seeing one church of any -denomination. He knew that an appalling percentage of farm communities -throughout the United States were entirely without churches, that -thousands of children, hundreds of their elders, had never listened to -the preaching of the Gospel. Yet here there were four churches at the -country cross-roads! - -That afternoon that young pastor wrote me a letter, wrote it in pain -and bitterness, but also in hope, in earnest desire to get the facts -before the nation: - - I saw in the paper the other day some mention of the chief rural - problems of the United States. May I call your attention to what - ministers in every country district regard as the stiffest problem - known to them and to their people? I refer to the problem of the - competitive religion, which affects not only pastors, but the entire - rural population, financially and spiritually, as well. The spiritual - rivalry set in motion by well-meaning home-mission boards and zealous - and jealous denominations is undermining the present and the future - welfare of the country church by ignoring the law of supply and - demand. If you can suggest any solution for this great problem, we - shall all be grateful. - -The case was in no way overstated by this young man. It is quite -true that there are few, if any, greater rural problems to-day than -the problem of the country church. It is undeniable that any honest -student of conditions in rural churches is confronted by staggering -and depressing statistics of overchurching and underattendance in some -sections, and of entire lack of attendance due to no churching at all -in others. - -Any map that showed the present rural church distribution of the United -States would be alarmingly reminiscent of a map of a country with large -areas of sterile famine-land. Nine persons out of every hundred in -rural America can not get to church because there is no church for them -to attend. This means that one seventh of all the rural communities of -the United States are entirely without Protestant churches. Pathetic -reports of the spiritual hunger of these land dwellers, living in a -Christian nation yet entirely shut off from Christian organization of -every kind, come from these communities. - -“No Protestant sermon has ever been preached in this locality,” is one -S O S sent out from a neighborhood of two hundred persons. “Not a child -in this district has ever attended Sunday-school,” deprecates another -community of approximately the same size. “This back-to-the-land -movement is fine, but why should loyal land dwellers have to condemn -their children to heathenry?” demands a distracted mother, in a remote -section of a Western State. “My children are growing up to be little -savages, as far as religion is concerned. They have never been inside a -church in their lives, and they don’t know what Sunday-school means.” - -Only one fifth of the rural population goes to church. - -Two fifths of the rural churches of the country are standing still or -losing ground. - -A quarter of all rural churches have no Sunday-school. - -One fifth of all rural churches are kept alive by home-mission aid. Of -these subsidized churches, a large number are in active competition -with churches of very similar doctrines. - -Seven out of every ten rural churches have only a fraction of a pastor -apiece. - -One third of all rural pastors receive so low a salary that they can -live only by working at some other occupation. - -One half of the rural churches of the country make an annual gain in -membership of as much as 10 per cent. - -In striking contrast to this churchless seventh of the country, are -the other six sevenths of rural America, many of them so overchurched -that they are crying out for relief from the burdens the churches -are laying upon them. There are ten times as many churches for every -thousand persons in some of the rural districts of the United States as -there are in New York City. Yet the percentage of attendance for every -thousand persons is slightly lower in these rural sections than it is -even in New York. Obviously, such a showing indicates a startling lack -of system in the distribution of rural churches, a woeful waste of the -religious potentialities of the country. - -Recently, a thorough survey of the rural church problem of the United -States was made for the first time in the history of the country, under -the direction of H. N. Morse and Edmund de S. Brunner, of the Institute -of Social and Religious Research, of New York. Some of the statistics -obtained by them are presented in the foregoing paragraphs. - -These facts, of course, offer a severe shock to those who have the -little white church of the countryside enshrined in memory along with -the little red school-house. We have fallen into the rut of taking it -for granted that our country churches not only keep pace with the best -religious life of the nation, but even stay a step or two in advance, -if not in theology, at least in interest in godly things and in piety. -We have come to think of country folk as the true church-goers of the -United States. To this sentimental point of view the facts stated offer -a true affront. - - -_Fewer Church-goers_ - -There are to-day approximately 101,000 rural churches in the United -States. A long time ago, when there were only a hundred such churches, -virtually the entire country population attended them. Some time -later, when there were a thousand churches of the kind, the average -of attendance was still exceedingly high. But of recent years the -percentage of rural church-goers has almost seemed to be in an inverse -ratio to the increase in churches. One out of every five is not a -showing that would have brought joy to the Puritan Fathers. What is the -reason for, this precarious situation in the rural churches of our -nation? Does it indicate that our country population is made up of a -less God-fearing folk than in former years? Does it demonstrate that -religion is less near to the hearts of the farm workers of the United -States than is true of its city dwellers? Or are these conditions the -logical outgrowth of a faulty system, the inevitable result of a church -distribution spiritually and economically unsound? - -More than one thing must be taken into consideration in any fair-minded -attempt to answer these questions. For instance, there is the fact that -during the past few years the number of tenant-farmers in the United -States has steadily increased, until now thirty eight per cent. of the -farms are tenant operated, most often on the basis of the one-year -lease. Any fact that tends to make the farmer more or less a transient -in the community naturally deters him from forming social or religious -relationships. - -Another reason frequently given for the low average of rural church -attendance is that so high a percentage--nearly 30 per cent.--of -the nation’s land workers are new Americans, the foreign-born, or -the children of the foreign-born. There are States, such as North -Dakota, where nearly every other farmer belongs to other than American -nativity, and whole sections of the country, as in the Middle West, -where foreigners are in excess of two fifths of the population. It is -estimated that at the present time more than fifty per cent. of these -people are unministered to by any church, Catholic or Protestant. Where -anything like an earnest and comprehensive attempt has been made by -churches to be of aid to them, as among the Mexicans of California, it -has been marked by astonishing results. Then why have the churches done -practically nothing for the foreign-born in rural sections? If the new -American can make good on the land, is it too much to ask the church to -make good with the new American? - -When I hear it said that no one is really interested in religion any -more, I cannot help thinking of an elderly Yankee farmer in the State -of Vermont, one J. C. Coolidge, father of our President, a man who -talks little about religion, but who for years has given virtually -all his leisure time, and a considerable slice of time not leisure at -all, to keeping alive the little white church near his farm at Plymouth -Notch. He hauls the wood from his own land that the congregation of -that little church may listen in comfort to the Word of God; he even, I -am told, does the janitor work himself, since the church has no funds -for a janitor. There is nothing especially remarkable in this. There -are thousands of such men all over our country, men to whom the church -is a thing to make sacrifices for, to keep alive at whatever cost. - -But in many districts it really seems that the fewer churches a county -is able to afford, the more it is apt to have. Out of the 211 churches -financially aided by home-missions societies in several counties where -intensive studies were made by the Institute of Social and Religious -Research, I am told that it was found that 149 of these churches could -have been dispensed with without essential loss to anyone. All but -thirty-four were competitive. - - -_Untrained Country Preachers_ - -Another grave charge is made against the church to-day in our country -districts. Farmers feel that they are neglected by the ministers of -their churches. - -It is also charged that many rural pastors lack both adequate training -and ability for their high calling. The real marvel is that so many of -these men are of the high type they are. - -It has to be admitted that there is ground for the charge of -incompetency among some of the rural pastors of the United States. -These men, it is true, are most inadequately prepared for their work. -How are they to afford more training for a calling which will never -pay them any returns upon it? That these men can develop into able -preachers has been demonstrated by those who have had the opportunity -to complete their courses in the summer school for ministers, -inaugurated, I believe, by the Presbyterian Board and now conducted by -several denominations. But most of them do not have this chance. - -It is competitive religion that is largely responsible for these two -dangerous factors in rural religious life--the non-resident pastor, -too occupied to be a true spiritual shepherd; and the incompetent -pastor, too incapable to be a leader of his people. - -But Christianity will not vanish from our country districts. Nowhere -is there better soil for the seeds of true religion than in the sturdy -soul of rural America. - -It is not so much _isms_ or _ologies_ that the rural population wants -as it is religious facilities for themselves and for their children. -Some time ago, when a study of fifteen Western States was made by the -Home Mission Council, it mentioned the following fact: - -“The general feeling manifested by the returns shows little care for -denominationalism. What these people want is some one to present Bible -facts in an acceptable manner.” - - -_The Call Can Be Met_ - -This is as true to-day as it was when it was written ten years ago. -Sunday-schools for their children; an adequate number of churches, not -fewer than will meet their needs or more than they can support; usable -churches, open the year round, with able ministers in charge--these are -the things the population of our rural districts wants. - -How are they to get them? By the installation of system into the -religious life of the country sections. There are enough churches in -the United States to-day, if they were distributed on the basis of -a real need rather than on the grounds of competitive religion, to -reach the remotest sections of our country. The money now expended -on nonproductive churches would purchase real vitality for essential -churches all through rural America. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - “_Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, - When wealth accumulates, and men decay._” - - GOLDSMITH. - - -Regular men and women long for children as they long for good luck, -long life, and sweet happiness. But they do not want just children, -any kind whatever so that they be children. No indeed! It is always a -whole, healthy child, a bright, intelligent child, a loving, obedient -child, a beautiful, virtuous child, that lives warm in their dreams. -And a child with such characteristics costs more than many men and -women can pay; for a well-bred child, like a well-bred colt, is the -product of many favoring tides of good fortune. - - -_Farms, The Place of Children_ - -So it is that the Johns and Marys who leave the farm and its open -spaces for city life give up having children of their own,--often -without knowing it when they leave the country, to be sure,--and find -themselves later doomed to work out human contentment in some other -way; for the high cost of city space, of just sufficient elbow-room for -a child to grow in and acquire the human characteristics desired, is -almost as prohibitive as if a law were on the statute-books forbidding -the rearing of children in city blocks. While my critic is biting his -thumb at this “exaggeration,” gravely asserting that he knows there -are many families of children in our American cities, I have caught -his eye and will hold it long enough to tell him a thing disclosed by -the last United States Census report, viz., among the thirty millions -of farm people, there are 4,000,000 more children under twenty-one -years of age than there are among any thirty millions of city people. -And this bald fact virtually declares the truth I am uttering--that -the country contains the children of the nation, that the farm is -the natural rearing-ground of well-bred children, and that the city -core--the stamping-ground of business and adults--abhors children as -“nature abhors a vacuum.” - -My story will not reach home, however, unless one pauses a moment to -let this census fact soak in. Here is an excess of children living on -our farms that would make a small nation,--bigger than Switzerland, -bigger than Chili, than Norway, than famous little agricultural Denmark. - - -_Cities Get Youth from Farms_ - -And what will become of this excess of children? What else than this? -The farms will manage to feed them, clothe them, educate them until -they come of age, when, possessed of the strong right arm, they will -turn their backs on the farm and farming, and go to recruit the -nerve-fagged industry of cities. - -The farms feed industry, professional service, and city life with -muscle, intellect, and imagination. This is the romance, and there is -not a word in it of wheat, corn, cotton, or cattle. This every-day -function of the farm, often spoken of lightly, almost as if it were a -poetic fiction, is the solid stratum of fact upon which the plot of my -story rests. The annual editorial blast, “Keep the boy on the farm,” -never concerns this slowly moving stream of young adults cityward, for -these are a surplus, an excess. And they must go, as sure as fate. A -legion of editorials could not dam back this flow. - -We are not without some definite information, moreover, as to how this -surplus of farm population works its way to the cities of the nation; -for a unique study has been made by the United States Department of -Agriculture--of the movement of 3000 young people from a thousand farms -in one community--over a period of one hundred years--a community -where (and this fits into my story) the God of the Puritans has been -known by the children from the days of the first log cabins. We know -just which farms sent their surplus crop of young folk away. We know -exactly where they went in the United States. And, furthermore, we know -what vocations they recruited, and what achievements in these vocations -they made. In a nutshell, we know in some measure what the contribution -of human force and influence was from these thousand farms, farm by -farm, to the upbuilding of the cities of the nation. The unfolding -picture of this farm community’s impact upon the nation’s life during -the century just passed is precisely the thing many persons have looked -for to put national meaning into the daily disappearance from the -farms of the surplus of young adults which every few years amounts to a -strong small nation poured into city industry. - -I cannot pass this remarkable study by without naming some of the men -who as “exportable surplus” left the old farmstead to work out careers -in cities. I will name only those whom you know, and know to honor. -You remember Governor George Peck of Wisconsin. You knew him as the -_Peck_ of “Peck’s Bad Boy.” Farm number 555 among these thousand farms -gave Governor Peck to Wisconsin. Governor Reuben Wood of Ohio came from -farm number 119. Governor Cushman Davis, of Minnesota, afterward United -States Senator, was the product of farm number 556, just as much as the -wheat from that farm was a product and went into national trade. Farm -number 618 gave Charles Finney to American Christendom and to Oberlin -College as its honored president. Farm number 701 raised Charles N. -Crittenton, gave him to the wholesale drug business in New York City, -in which he accumulated wealth with which he put into operation his -ideal for friendless girls. The Florence Crittenton Rescue Homes for -girls in seventy-two cities of the United States tells his story. -One of the little hamlets in the community produced Daniel Burnham, -America’s leading architect, at home equally in Chicago, New York, or -Rome, Italy. - -But these brighter lights of the exodus do not by any means convey -what is perhaps after all the greater influence and might of the -majority of the human surplus who went forth and found their places and -played their rôles as less widely known personalities in enterprises -of banking, manufacture, teaching, or merchandizing, where they helped -weave the fabric of America and its institutions as we know them in -every-day life. - -The force of this plain story of the human product of good farms, in -a community where God was known, lies not in what might be considered -the exceptional character of the community, but rather in the fact -that the story of this particular community of farms is the story, in -one respect or another, of all American farm communities. This study -convinces both men of the farms and men of the cities,--as it sets -their memories to work about the migrants from the land whom they have -known--that as the farming communities wax or wane, so wax or wane the -cities and the nation. - - -_Many Children Virtual Pagans_ - -And here an unsuspected villain enters my story. Do not laugh in -your sleeve when you discover that the villain is a fact, merely a -fact; but, by the by, a very stubborn and blistering fact. Of the -fifteen millions of farm children--children under twenty-one years of -age,--more than four millions are virtual pagans, children without -knowledge of God. If, perchance, they know the words to curse with, -they do not know the Word to live by. This saddening fact is the solemn -disclosure of the recent study, already mentioned, made by the Social -and Religious Institute of New York City. - -A survey of 179 counties in the United States, representatively -selected, enables the Institute with confidence to assert that -“1,600,000 farm children live in communities where there is no church -or Sunday-school of any denomination,” and “probably 2,750,000 more -who do not go to any Sunday-school, either because the church to which -their parents belong does not have any, or because they do not care to -connect themselves with such an organization.” - -One does not get the real inwardness of this fact until one appreciates -that these 1,600,000 of pagan children are not scattered evenly, or -more or less evenly, among the other millions of children who are in -contact with the Bible, but are in a great measure homed in bibleless, -godless communities. The nation might possibly assimilate a million -bibleless children if they were brought up among several millions of -children who know the concepts of religion; but absorbing godless -children in great numbers from whole godless groups is a bird of a -different feather. What is still more disconcerting, the trend, we are -led to suppose, is not from bad to better, but from bad to worse. - -“There is no national passion for seeking out the godless community and -setting the Bible there,” we hear on every hand. - -“The promoters of Bible study are too apologetic to business, to -education, to pleasure, even, and go not about their tasks as those who -have a commission from the nation,” many say. - -But these bare statements fail, perhaps, to get hold of us. We must -have particulars and the pulse of the thing. And so I wish to take a -page out of my own experience and let you read it. - - -_Trapped in a Godless Community_ - -My duties, a while back, took me into the clover-bearing hills of a -promising county in a dairy State. I stayed the night with a farmer’s -family, enjoying the hospitality and confidences of the home. Never -shall I forget two episodes of the evening. - -The milking was finally over--twelve mighty good cows. I had been -allowed to milk three, taking the mother’s place on her favorite -milking-stool. Certain cows were “tender” and responded kindly to her -gentler touch. - -The house was on a side hill sloping steeply to the road, and across -the road was a thinly timbered twenty-acre lot. The warm milk had -been poured into ten-gallon cans and carried up to the house, where -stood, in a neat little milk-house, a cream separator. When all was -ready, the separator began to sing, the cream came trickling out, the -skim-milk poured into a ten-gallon can, as the gaunt six-foot-three, -narrow-shouldered farmer turned the crank. At the first whirring -tune-up of the separator, I hear a scurrying of feet in the timber lot -below, and soon a regiment of hogs and pigs were at the fence, standing -with hind feet in the long trough, front feet over the top rail of the -fence, black heads in a row, beady little eyes peering up the hill, -open mouths giving vent to a long-drawn squeal of jubilant petition. -As the whir of the separator grew into a liquid hum, the squealing -chorus rose to heaven, filling the valley, investing the farm, like a -piece of symbolism, with the imperious demands of animals and crops -upon the total energies of the family. Finally the last drop of milk -went through the separator. Then the father put his hands to two -handles of two ten-gallon cans of skim-milk; one son grasped the other -handle of one can; another son caught hold of the handle of the second -can; while each son in his remaining hand held a pail of the milk. Then -they three, with two cans and two brimming pails, took up their stately -march abreast down the hill to the squealing chorus at the trough. -It looked for all the world like some priestly ritual. The milk was -poured into the trough. The pigs ceased to chant and began to suck, -guzzle, push, and grunt. So the day’s work was over, and we sought the -house. Darkness fell over the hill and valley and the filled pigs lay -down to sleep; while the farmer gathered his family about him, took up -his Bible and read the Scriptures, even as did the cotter, whom Burns, -the farmer Scot, made us know: - - The priest-like father reads the sacred page, - How Abram was the friend of God on high; - Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage - With Amalek’s ungracious progeny; - Or how the royal bard did groaning lie - Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire; - Or Job’s pathetic plaint and wailing cry; - Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire; - Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. - -Conversation in the morning brought out the fact that this hillside -home was virtually the only one, in this clover community, struggling -to bring up its children in the knowledge of God. No church, no -Sunday-school, no parochial school, no Bible class. The gaunt father, -gathering emotion as he overheard his own story, said: - -“I have only one problem now. In twelve years my cows and hogs have -paid for themselves, paid for my farm, built my barn and house. The one -problem is not money any longer, but it is my boys and girls. They are -just now at the point where the home can no longer hold them, and they -will, I fear, sink into the mire of this godless community.” - -“What do you mean, ‘mire’?” I inquired. - -“Well, it is hard to put into words,” he continued. “Perhaps this will -give you some idea: since I have been here, now twelve years, not a -wedding has taken place anywhere hereabouts that has not been forced. -And this is not the worst of it.” - -“Why don’t you start a Sunday-school?” I urged. - -“Too late!” he sighed. “My children are almost beyond me. I was, I -fear, too busy with my cows and pigs, and the children just grew up -before I knew it.” - -“What will you do?” I could not refrain from asking, more to myself -than to him, in my own perplexity, as I tried to share in the problem. - -“The only thing I can do,” said he, as if the conversation had -strengthened a previous resolution half-heartedly entertained, “is to -yield to my wife’s judgment; sell the farm, go to some safe community -where there is a church, Sunday-school, and a high school. We people -here in this community made our great mistake in starting out wrong. We -made a religion of our pure-bred hogs and cattle, and let our boys and -girls go to the dogs.” - -This tale of children, who turned out to have been unwittingly -sidetracked by cows and hogs, recalled my own experience in breaking -some new land in the Skims at a period in my life when the doctor had -said: “What you need is to get close to the land. Crawl around on the -soil a year or two and you will learn over again how to sleep.” - -Well, with my old horse The Cid and a mail-order one-horse plow, I -went through the motions of plowing that pine cut-over from which the -pines had been skimmed off like cream from a milk-pan. Surveying the -scratched and torn field, somewhat bruised and bleeding, I will declare -it was, I said to myself: - -“It doesn’t look really plowed; but it will be all right when I get it -dragged.” - -Then The Cid did his very best at dragging. Dutifully--with an inner -chuckle, I am sure, at my green expectations, for he was a seasoned -old Skims horse himself--he plodded along and over the field. At last -I stood sweating and weary, looking it over, and was obliged to own up: - -“It doesn’t look dragged; but it will be all right when I get it -cultivated.” - -I went through the form of marking and planting, and though I couldn’t -see the rows very well, I quieted my discontent by saying to myself, -“It will be all right when I get it hoed.” - -But when the corn came up, it was accompanied by such a community of -weeds, briers, grass, and small bushes, that I couldn’t cultivate -because I couldn’t see the corn. - -After I had in much perplexity stared at the cultivator and then at the -field, I looked that piece of work square in the face and averred: - -“If I ever plow again, I am not going to kid myself into thinking that -the cultivator will straighten out the sins of the plow.” - -This raw-boned farmer and his wife, possessed of the fairest intentions -in the world for their children, had become trapped in a godless -community before they were aware of it; all because the seed-bed of -human life had not been plowed deep with social religion at the very -outset. Is this community a fair example of bibleless country groups? I -believe it is. I am sorry to admit it, but I believe it is a fair type. - - -_When the Bible Has No Interpreter_ - -If a nation can not build civilization securely without a knowledge of -history, neither can children build character without a knowledge of -those men and women of history who have essayed to know God. The Bible -is the story of such persons. It is biography. It is lives of those in -whom the soul of man in his search for God has risen to its highest -levels. There is no substitute for this Bible biography,--except, if -you please, another Bible. - -And perhaps, in point of Bible illiteracy, next to the community which -has no Bible in it, lies the community in which, though there is a -Bible, the leaders in teaching the Bible, or rather in explaining -the Bible to the children, are themselves grossly ignorant, if not -demoralized. The Bible is a book of many stories, of a host of -incidents, of innumerable ideas. Selection is vital. To select from the -Bible and hand on its meaning in grave ignorance is to run the risk -that all ignorance runs. Here is where many a rural community suffers, -when it is commonly thought to be provided with a knowledge of God. - -It fell to my lot recently to visit a small rural community of -twenty-five families of this type. Only three of the families were -totally without church connections, or at least church traditions. -One church building has fallen in. One lies torn down. The third, -still standing, is rotting. It is supposed to be “haunted.” Splits -disorganized and discouraged the people. A fourth rude church structure -has come, but splitting up from within has begun. Ignorance of a crass -sort rules. The Bible has had no well-balanced soul to interpret its -wonderful truths. - -The family histories of this settlement run--to speak very grimly -indeed--like an anthology of despair and depravity. Listen: - -“She drowned her babies regularly in the creek.” - -“He was said to be the father of his own daughter’s first child.” - -“This woman was subnormal and has three illegitimate children.” - -“This other woman is a menace to every man in the community.” - -“He committed suicide.” - -“She poured kerosene on the cat and set fire to it.” - -“Boil nails in water to find out if person for which water is named -committed a crime. If nails crackle and knock against the pan, then -person named is guilty.” - -“A person dies hard on feathers. We took mother’s bed out from under -her three times when we thought she was dying.” - -“Our children don’t need to go to school to learn to read. The Spirit -teaches them to read.” - -The people of these families looked, in the face, like people you meet -in any fair group of folks; but their minds, their deeds, their hopes, -their fears! There’s the rub. Is this group of twenty-five families -typical of country communities where the Bible is fought over by blind -leaders of the blind? I am afraid it is. I admit it with shame, but I -admit it. The Bible,--as if it were a plow found by persons who knew -not its use, but who scrapped hard for its possession as an ornament -of their dooryards,--the life-giving Bible in these hands is still a -closed book and a locked-up treasure. - - -_Pedigreed Austerity Better Than Ignorance_ - -Human life at its best is no mere accident which may happen anywhere -under any conditions. The best has its pedigree. It is the result -of infinite pains with children as with crops and animals. Even the -austere, narrow-gaged leadership having a pedigree is far better than -this ignorant, illiterate type. - -I remember well as a lad how my father, a country minister, collegebred -and trained in the theological school of his particular denominational -stripe, stood rock-like in his parish for temperance. It was a grape -country, with several wine distilleries. My father taught abstention -from wine-drinking and preached against the distilleries. One -church pillar was in the wine business and furnished the sacramental -wine. My father finally carried his logic to the point where he made -announcement: - -“Next Sunday at the Communion we shall not use fermented wine.” - -Sunday came. A larger congregation than usual assembled. There was a -tenseness of silent emotion in the stiff Sunday-dressed village and -farmer folk, which I can feel yet, after forty years. - -The communion-table was set. I see my father now, as he picked up the -flagon of wine and poured into the chalice. He paused--on his face a -sudden look of bewilderment. Then slowly he poured the chalice of wine -back into the flagon, strode to the door, and emptied the contents on -the ground. Quietly resuming the ceremony he said: - -“We will commune without wine to-day.” - -The distiller had done his dirty work and put one over on the country -parson. But the parson, although he caused a sense of consternation -to creep over the church folk,--akin to the horror in the multitude -when _Count Antonio_, in Anthony Hope’s tonic story, laid hands on -the Sacred Bones in midstream,--by this daring act helped plug the -bung-holes and spike the spigots in the cellars of that county. And the -whole countryside, be it said, responded to the resolute will of my -father to make God known to a community steeped in wine. - -My father probably shared the narrow-mindedness of his particular -pedigree, but he certainly hewed to the line like a prophet of old. -His crop of young converts came usually in winter; but the snow and -ice had no deterring chill for him. He never thought of postponing -the baptismal rite till summer. He had a large hole cut through in -the little river near by, for water helped mightily in his system of -doctrine. He didn’t spare me either. At eleven years of age, he led me, -as he did my country playmates, out of the sleigh, down the snowbank, -into this ice-water. There was no softening of the ideals of life -in that parish, I can tell you. And the God of Daniel was known and -acknowledged there in fear and trembling. - -When, in after years it fell to my fortune to live on the Skims and to -woo sleep with logging, stumping, and “scratching” the land, I saw -what a real Sunday-school would do even in a submarginal community for -the children of the pine cut-over. There was the farmer widow woman -with the man’s hands. What would have been her chances of rearing her -seven children to usefulness and self-respect without that weekly -community-school under good leadership? - -I hear again her breezy, cheery call to her brood as she drives up to -the little church. - -“Pile out.” - -“Pile in,” when Sunday-school is over. - -A slap of the lines, and a piece of rural America goes back to its -cabin, minds sprayed with race lore. A mighty wholesome sight in a -community of tools with broken handles, of harnesses toggled with -hay-wire, of fortunes “busted”, of the blind, and of those who could -not sleep. - -There was the old retired farmer, Scotch McDugle, too, eighty years -old. He would come over from next door of an evening and swap Skims -stories for a cheery welcome and a listening ear. It would be -midwinter. The sheet-iron stove showed red. - -“Come in, Mr. McDugle,” my wife would say. “Take off your hat and -mittens.” - -“Oh, no, no,” he would reply, “just stepped in to say ‘howdy.’ Can’t -stay a minute.” - -Then McDugle would settle down for the evening close to the red-hot -stove, mittens drawn tight, Scotch cap pulled close down over his ears. -As he got limbered in memory, he would go through a set of queer -antics with his lips and tongue--little dry, staccato sputters. He -reminded me in this of a courtly neurasthene I once met who said, as he -went through similar tongue motions, “I beg your pardon, but I have a -hair on the tip of my tongue which I seem never able to get off.” - -Farmer McDugle’s favorite theme was the making of great American men -out of “hard knocks” and “a good pinch of God.” He reveled in Lincoln, -whom he had known; and he never got tired of weaving the people he knew -in with the race-heroes of all time. - -As I think of McDugle and his ilk in these later days, I can not help -suspecting that bleak little Scotland and God in the life, despite -the stain of the “wee drap o’rye,” account for many of America’s -man-making rural communities. - - -_When Catholic and Protestant Agree_ - -The chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Catholic Rural -Life Conference, in a call published (in the April 1924 number of “St. -Isadore’s Plow”) for the second annual Catholic Rural Life Conference, -says: - -“We have two distinct entities of population, and, we might say, of -civilization in the United States--the urban and the rural. The church -is decidedly urban. So far as the Church is concerned, the country -towns and villages are still ‘pagani.’” - -Thus you see Protestant and Catholic agree in seeing the menace of -rural paganism within the borders of Christian America. - -This is not the moment to settle the blame for this condition on any -persons or sects. It is rather the time for a statesmanlike move to -meet the menace. Bible instruction of worth, dignity, intelligence, -in every community, made accessible to the last child, is an aim -which alone can meet the case. But this is an herculean stunt, and -requires some of the same sweep of coöperative, universal momentum as -drove out yellow fever, malaria, and is fighting pellagra, hook-worm, -and tuberculosis. Bible illiteracy ranks as a problem with book -illiteracy; and as great a unanimity is required to root it out as to -eradicate book illiteracy. A hundred different religious bodies in -the United States have striven more or less fitfully in the past with -this problem. But far more is needed than the hundred-headed effort. -When, in the late war, the Allies came to their senses and found that -their struggle was not a rope-pull nor a barbecue, but a life-or-death -struggle, they elected Foch to give universality of will to the cause -of defense. - -The children of rural America deserve by good rights a Foch to lead -the forces of Bible literacy against a creeping, godless paganism. I -have refrained from presenting the religious case for this crusade. The -menace is so great that the social appeal should be sufficient--and -should reach every intelligent lover of America, be he fundamentalist, -modernist, ethicist, or just plain man. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -William James, the Harvard psychologist, used to say in his class-room: -“I must fight the devil and his wiles, for God needs me. I may help -save the day.” - -In the same room, the next hour, Josiah Royce, the philosopher, would -say, “I must set my heel on Satan’s neck, for God’s victorious spirit -is in me.” - -Whichever of these two schools of moral action one belongs to, one is -bound, you see, to fight the devil and his guile; and in country life -this is no joke, for as it turns out, the devil waved a mighty wicked -wand over the American farm tenant when he jockeyed him on to the land -into the shoes of the departing farm owner. It was a devilish, cunning -trick to decoy the owner, body and soul, into town and into the town -church--away from the little country church of his fathers. It was, -however, the meanest lick of Satan against the peace of the tenant -to bewitch him into flitting from farm to farm and from community -to community. And now the situation has come to such a pass that, -unless the American church has the grace and backbone and subtlety to -outgeneral the devil in his game, the devil wins; for in matters of -religion, the landless man is between the devil and the deep sea. - - -“_Churches Detour--Tenants Ahead_” - -It is old stuff, in a way, this cheerless story of farm tenants -and religion. Pick up, as I have done, either at random or quite -methodically, booklets, chapters, articles, or pamphlets dealing at -first hand with the farm tenant, and the tale of his religious handicap -runs drearily, hopelessly to the same sad end. For example, take -this rather mild statement from a member of Roosevelt’s Country Life -Commission: - -“The farm owner who has moved to town and is renting his land cannot -be expected to be a real, vital force in the rural church. Nor can -the tenant who has a one-year lease, or whose tenure is uncertain, be -expected to cultivate the Christian graces by intimate fellowship -with his neighbors and associates; in other words, to take root in the -community and become a part of it.” - -“Why, then,” it will be asked, “try to dress up the outworn subject -again?” - -The plain answer, without any apology, is simply this: The farm-tenant -case, as a phase of religion in eclipse, has not yet cast an image on -the American mind. The American church,--and I class together all the -Christian bodies in this sweeping term,--the Christian conscience of -the American church has apparently reversed itself and “passed by on -the other side” of this bedeviled situation. Now such an attitude, such -collective behavior, is ruthless, well nigh unforgivable, and in fact -incomprehensible. Words must continue to be spoken until the church -ceases to detour around the tenant. - - -_The Flood of Tenancy Unabated_ - -And first of all, in order to see the gravity of the case as it stands, -one must sense the resistless character of the sweeping flow of tenancy -itself. Decade by decade the flood has risen. In 1880, 25.6 per cent. -of the farms in the United States were tenant farms; in 1890, 28.4 per -cent.; in 1900, 35.3 per cent.; in 1910, 37.0 per cent.; in 1920, 38.1 -per cent. - -If one looks a little closer at the regions where the flood is -highest--almost over the dikes, so to speak--the truth strikes home a -little stronger. In the east South-central States, containing Kentucky, -Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, the percentage in 1880 was 35.2; in -1890, 38.6; in 1900, 49.1; in 1910, 52.8; in 1920, 49.6. In the west -south-central area, containing Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, -the percentage in 1880 was 35.2; in 1890, 38.6; in 1900, 49.1; in 1910, -52.8; in 1920, 53.2. In the west north-central area, containing, as a -very vital part of American agriculture, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, -North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, the percentage in 1880 -was 20.5; in 1890, 24.0; in 1900, 28.6; in 1910, 30.0; in 1920, 34.1. - -When the United States Census Report for 1920 came out and was scanned, -it was discovered by every one that in the decade between 1910 and 1920 -the flood of tenant farms had in number gone down in some States a -little, as in Alabama and Mississippi, a fact which brought a decline -in the east south-central area from 52.8 per cent. in 1910 to 49.6 per -cent. in 1920. But lest the friends of agriculture in America should be -put under ether by this disclosure, Dr. C. L. Stewart, now professor -in the University of Illinois, while a member of the United States -Department of Agriculture, in a statement entitled, “The Persistent -Increase of Tenant Farming,” called attention to the fact that the -bare number of tenant farms is a less accurate index of the sweep and -meaning of tenancy than the acreage involved and the value of that -acreage: - -“When measured on the basis of acreage and value, the number of rented -acres per thousand and the number of dollar’s worth of rented land per -thousand was not only higher (in 1910 and 1920) than that shown on the -preceding basis (number of rented farms), but has been growing at much -faster rates during both of the decades since 1900, especially during -the decade just ended.... In the light of this analysis, the tide of -tenancy is shown by the latest census to have continued with little or -no abatement.” - -In sober truth, this flood-tide of tenancy is no mere passing -phenomenon in the adolescent experience of America, but is a settled -characteristic now being wrought into the texture of American life. -As a social and economic force, tenancy is here to stay. Statesmen -may well build their dikes higher against it; but American religious -leaders--the makers of ecclesiastical policy--must from now on -gravely take farm tenancy into their reckoning, or assume spiritual -responsibility for its continued religionless character. - - -_Locating the Devil’s Quarry_ - -Let us draw a bit closer to these tenant folks and look them in the -eyes. There they are, in round numbers two and a half millions of -tenant operators; or, perhaps, better reckoned for our purpose as -twelve millions of people, counting all persons in the tenant families -both old and young. But, as almost everybody knows, there are a few -vast differences among tenants, and we must sift a little and sort out -the group that the devil is laying his finger on and claiming as his -own. - -A tenant who is a son or daughter of the landlord, or otherwise -related to the landlord by blood or marriage, is without question -not only a privileged person and his family a privileged family -among tenants, but, what is more to the point, living on family -lands as he most generally does, the “related tenant” is so often an -owner in prospect with a deed “in escrow” as the law would put it, -that while nominally a tenant, he is an owner in thin disguise, and -virtually has in the community the status of an owner. The census does -not declare what percentage of the twelve millions of tenant folk -belongs to this favored class; but whatever the percentage is, it is -obviously decreasing with the decreasing percentage of owner-operating -families. Representative studies made by the United States Department -of Agriculture indicate that 23 per cent. of the tenant population -belongs at present to this group. If we accept this estimate, then, in -1920, there were 2,760,000 persons in the families of “related tenants.” - -To protect my story against the will to exaggerate the landless -element, let us call the total number of “related tenants” three -millions; and then let us deduct this whole group from the twelve -millions of tenant folks. This leaves nine millions of tenants -unprivileged by birth or marriage in respect to land. - -Lest any one should feel, furthermore, that I am trying to make, under -cover, a case of the colored tenant,--whose situation is confessedly -special and should not, for obvious reasons, be confused with that of -white tenants,--let us sift and sort again and take out three and a -half millions of colored tenant folk, old and young. The residuum is -five and a half millions of white tenants. This is the group that has -swelled in numbers during the past four decades. This is the group -that is all the time spreading over more and more acres, all the time -creeping on to more and more valuable land. This group of landless -men, women, and children (I do not mean to say that this is the only -landless group of white farm people, for the agricultural-labor class -makes another story), occupying more and more the strategic positions -in agriculture and country life, contains the devil’s quarry. - - -_Tenants On the Go_ - -We must add one more particularly distressing feature to our general -picture. In December and January in the South, or in March in the -North, there is a great stir among these tenants, for moving-time -has come. During the year between December 1, 1921, and December 1, -1922, according to a statement put out by the U. S. Department of -Agriculture, entitled, “Farm Occupancy, Ownership, and Tenancy, 1922,” -“nearly 663,000 shifts on farms exchanging tenants” occurred of which -“nearly 250,000 tenants were indicated to have either discontinued -farming for some other occupation or moved out of their communities.” - -In this exodus, poverty tags along, poverty carrying in her apron -all the witch’s ills--hard luck, dimmed lights of the mind, illness, -inferiority written in behavior, stolid despair, indifference to -improvement, insensibility to refinements. In the South, poverty hangs -on to the coat-tails of the “Cropper”--him of the lowest estate of the -tenant. In 1920, according to the United States Census Report, there -were 227,378 white croppers, more than one million white cropper folk. - -Behold a host, comparable with the host of Israel on the way to Canaan. -The roads are filled with teams, with jags of household belongings, -with led or driven cattle, horses and mules, with loads of women and -children. A small nation is folding its tents and moving on ere its -tents have fairly got pitched. White tenants alone,--and mind you, out -of the group of five and a half millions of landless people,--an army -of 1,375,000 souls; and of these, more than a half a million going -across the border of the community into a strange land for another -short sojourn. This is the picture you will see every year--over a -quarter of all tenants moving, and ten per cent. of all tenants moving -into strange associations among strange people. - - -_Outcasts From the Church_ - -In their recent study, “The Town and Country Church,” Dr. H. N. Morse -and Dr. de S. Brunner, of the Institute of Social and Religious -Research, have this convincing word to say about the church and the -farm tenant: - -“The church in the country areas is not, generally speaking, the church -of the landless man. In a study of all the churches in 179 counties, -located in 44 States, the situation, which we believe is reliably -representative of conditions in the United States as a whole, is -this: The percentage of farm owners who are members of churches in -the South is 59.5, while of tenants who are members the percentage is -33.5; in the Southwest, of owners, 26.2, while of tenants, 9.2; in the -Northwest, of owners, 16.4, while of tenants, 7.4; in the Middle West, -of owners, 47.9, while of tenants, 20.3; in the Prairie, of owners, -55.6, while of tenants, 15.8.” - -These two authorities on the farmer’s church, draw from their study of -the high and low tenancy areas in 175 counties this further conclusion: -“The larger the proportion of farm tenants in an area, the more -conspicuously unreached by the church is the landless man.” Here are -their figures, see for yourself: - -“In counties where tenancy runs from 0 to 10 per cent., the percentage -of farm owners who are church members is 13.7, while the percentage -of tenants who are church members is 12.4; where tenancy runs from 11 -to 25 per cent., the percentage of owners as church members, is 26.8, -while of tenants, 19.8; where tenancy runs from 26 to 50 per cent., the -percentage of owners is 48.2, while of tenants, 23.6; where tenancy -runs over 50 per cent., the percentage of owners who are church members -is 63.6, while the percentage of tenants who are church members is -23.9.” - -When we look into this statement, it is plain that in the low tenancy -areas the “related tenants” on “family lands” bulk large, and they -rank, as we know, with owners themselves; but when we get into the -high tenancy areas, we strike the core of tenants unrelated to the -landlord. Here is the mass of our 5,500,000 landless tenant folk, and -here is where the church has weakened and fallen down. Five millions -of these white landless tenants are in the high tenancy areas. And -applying this church study to our problem, while the church reaches 55 -per cent. of the owners in these areas it reaches only 24 per cent. -of the tenants. That is, 1,200,000 of these landless tenants only -are inside the circle of direct religious influence, and 3,800,000 -are outside. If these 5,000,000 persons had been owners of land, or -inheritors of land in waiting, the church would have reached 2,750,000 -of them instead of 1,200,000; in other words here are 1,550,000 tenant -people who are outcasts from the church simply because they are -landless folk. And these outcasts--these religionless pariahs--are on -the increase from year to year as tenancy increases its hold upon the -nation. - - -_One Hundred Per Cent. Material for Religion_ - -It surely will not be misunderstood if a layman should call to mind -that the genius of Christianity is its perennial Gospel--just good -news--to the poor, the broken in life’s struggle. If a fitter multitude -than these tenants for the good tidings of the Christ can be found on -the face of the earth, I would like to learn of them. The ordinary life -of these outcasts, these wanderers from spot to spot seeking the sun -that refuses to shine, has precisely all of those breakdowns which the -Christian religion promises to repair--poverty, invalidism, death, -sin. It seems to me that these pariahs are just naturally made to order -for the kind of religion that the American church has to offer; but as -I see it, and I have looked this thing in the face from angle after -angle, they haven’t got a ghost of a show at it the way the church -system of the country at present works out. Speaking straight from the -shoulder, the devil wins, unless--And where is the person who will rise -and name the great “unless” that can fix this church system up and set -the heel of the church on Satan’s neck? - -The history of the church, running back through the centuries, is, -as I read it, dotted with awakenings, with the rise of a thought, of -a hope-dream, with the rise of a man who out of the very fog and -blackness of popular waywardness, wantonness, unbelief, depravity, has -stood up and successfully denied that human life must be all to the -strong and that the poor must live unillumined. This has been the type -of man who has lit the torch of love and solicitude and faith in the -world that has lighted the race generation after generation. Is this -not the time in the life of the American church and this the occasion -in America for such a man to arise and call a halt upon the detour of -the church around the farm tenant? - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -“Hireling!” A sour epithet to hand a preacher; but the word is not -mine. Look at it, if you will, in its original setting and judge for -yourself: - -“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the -sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own -the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and -fleeth.... The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth -not for the sheep.” - -So spake the Man of Sorrows, who, as he went about preaching the Gospel -of the Kingdom, spake as never man spake. And nineteen centuries -of unbroken Christian usage look down upon “pastor and flock” as an -almost perfect characterization of preacher and parish. Passing quickly -through the gateway leading up to the porch of my tale, let me in a few -words taken from “Town and Country Church in the United States,” set -before you the pastor-and-flock-hard-luck story in rural America: - -“The total number of communities within the town (town refers to places -of 5,000 people or less) and country area is 73,230.” - -“There are 33,808 communities, or 42 per cent. of the total number, -that have churches, but do not have within them any resident pastors.” - -“It would require 34,181 more ministers giving their full time to the -work of the ministry to provide one for each community, if they were -evenly distributed.” - -“The great advantage of the town over the village, and of both town -and village over the country, in the matter of resident pastors, is -a characteristic of all regions and of virtually all counties. Thus, -while 78 out of every 100 town churches have resident pastors, and 60 -out of every 100 village churches, only 17 out of every 100 country -churches have them, and less than 5 out of every 100 country churches -have full-time resident pastors.” - -In a nutshell, this is the inglorious fact: 30,000 flocks in rural -America have no shepherds. Thirty thousand rural flocks are open to -the wolf--because (for it so appears) American preachers care not for -country sheep. - - -_Sentenced to Purgatory_ - -An eminent rural-life leader a few weeks ago came back from a -country-life conference of rural ministers, reporting that these -ministers had a saying among them, “A country charge (pastorate) is a -sentence to purgatory.” - -This report sounds like a piece of clerical humor; grim, maybe, but -harmless and meaning nothing. Would to God this were true! Then perhaps -the picture of these 30,000 shepherdless flocks might turn out to -be only a nightmare. I tried to shake the thing out of my mind; but -immediately the long line of my ministerial acquaintances passed -unwillingly before me; and I solemnly affirm that, with a few princely -exceptions, these men after being plunged into their ministry, coming -up for air, as it were, faced toward the city parish as flowers turn -toward the light; from the country, they struck out for the village; -from the village, they struck out for the town; from the town, they -struck out for the city; from the city, they struck out for the -metropolis. - - -_The Preacher’s Flight_ - -The more I struggled to free myself from a conclusion on this matter, -the deeper into conviction I sank. I recalled, much against my -inclination, a bad half-hour several years ago at the headquarters of -one of the great religious bodies of America. The occasion was the -meeting of the National Social Service Commission of that denomination. -I had just finished reading a report, which expressed the idea that we -might look forward to the day when country parishes would be put up -in packages containing people enough supporting one church, so that -churches in the country would be as powerful, ministers in the country -would be as influential, as city churches, on the one hand, and city -ministers on the other. A captain of city industry was a member of the -commission. During my paper, hands in pockets, he paced the floor up -and down--somewhat to my discomfiture as I recall. When I concluded -reading, he broke out with: - -“Bosh! All bosh! The country church will always be of little account. -It gets culls for ministers--it always has; it always will. Just as I -left the farm for the city to improve my lot, so every country minister -who can will leave the country parish for the city parish to improve -his lot.” - -That I suffered a shock as if by lightning may easily be imagined. The -steel-blue tone of this man did something to my heart; did something to -my faith in human nature hard to define. This captain of industry--and -I suspect that this is what did the damage--never seemed to question -the legitimacy of the preacher’s flight. Representing, as he did, the -leading laymen of his denomination, quietly accepting the exodus of -country preachers as perfectly normal--because running true to the -economics of good business instinct--he appalled me with his cynicism. -And it took me many a month, I confess, to get back my belief in -humankind. But it came back, and came back strong in the following -manner: - - -_Around the Glover’s Cot_ - -By accident, one summer, I made a find; in one of the 30,000 pastorless -parishes, a man lying prone on a cot; the cot standing on a stone-boat; -the stone-boat lying close to a deep pool in the bend of a little -river, in the shade of a great elm-tree; the man all alone, flat on his -back, silently whipping the trout-pool with his fly. I came to believe -in this helpless fisherman, and again all things good and beautiful -seemed possible. I got the story from his sister, but can give only -hints of it here. - -As a boy on the farm he had made up his mind to get an education. At -sixteen he was looking forward impatiently to beginning his courses -of study, when one day in the woods a tree which the men folks were -cutting down fell on him and broke his back. He never walked again, -nor, in fact, ever again sat up. Doomed to lie on his back, all his -hopes blighted, he asked for something to do with his hands. They gave -him needle and thread, shears and a piece of buckskin. He made a pair -of clumsy buckskin gloves. He made a less clumsy pair. He made pair -after pair, better and still better. Then dozens of pairs, until his -skill built up a small business. But his ambition mounted with success, -and he asked whether he couldn’t study something. - -“Can’t I study law?” he pleaded. - -They got him law-books. He read law, he made buckskin gloves; he -made gloves, he read law. He was admitted to the bar. He became -justice-of-the-peace in his backwoods settlement. Men got to coming -for miles to the glover’s cot to tell their troubles and look into his -deep eyes, hear his counsel, and feel his glad hand. He was a real -peacemaker under the guise of a lawyer. His ethics backed up to and -rested upon the Sermon on the Mount. He bought land, hired it tilled, -built himself a better house, and settled into the character of a -country squire. He was of the little church flock, and the rest of the -flock came to set great store by his good sense, his wholesome cheer, -indomitable activity, and, withal, his straight reliance on God. In -fact, the helpless glover’s dwelling was the meeting-place for the -flock about as often as the church building; for everybody said, “We -get new strength to keep a-going when we meet around the cot.” - - -_The Modern Wolf a Playful Cub?_ - -See how I got back my faith? The prone fisherman on his stone-boat was -a godsend to me. I saw that personal life is so rich that no one can -be broken in body to the point where, in case he “layeth down his life -for the sheep,” he will be making a mean gift. I half suspect that God -raises up out of the ground, as it were, in many of these pastorless -communities a proxy for the parson that, beholding the wolf, leaveth -the sheep and fleeth to the city--a proxy, like the glover-lawyer, who -is no quitter. And in some parishes where the preacher still sticks -(his face set, however, toward the city) I fancy a man or a woman or a -child can be found who is naïvely scaring off the wolf. - -Norris Shepardson was such a man. Farmer, poet, refined spirit, he -went about his work making everybody believe that a new day is fresh -from God. Ambrose Brimmer, a member of the community, didn’t happen -to be much of a churchman, and his Sunday haymaking teased the parson -mightily. I remember well one perfect trout day, when Ambrose was -showing me the holes in a stream strange to my rod, that we got to -talking about preachers. - -“I don’t care a damn if the parson does see me haying on Sunday,” said -Ambrose; “but if I get a sight of Norris Shepardson driving up the -road, I skedaddle and hide, you bet! You know Norris Shepardson. Well, -Norris Shepardson is a Christian and no quack.” - -And Ambrose was right. Norris Shepardson was a Christian from his -eyelashes to his finger-tips; and his sweet belief in you put you -straightway under obligation to goodness when he cast a glance your way. - -It is probably true that I have been something of a modern-life fan. -But when I try to think of the Master’s parables of the shepherd, the -sheep, and the wolf, and of the one sheep that was lost while the -ninety and nine were safe in the fold, I confess that I am troubled -about my modern-life philosophy. - -Are modern sheep any the less in need of a downright shepherd because -they are modern? - -Isn’t there a wolf any longer in times that are modern? Or may he -perhaps be just a playful cub? Or possibly, by this time, a toothless, -plain, doddering beastling? - -Has the age of lofty heroism in religion--the age of sheer contempt -of some of the traditional goods of life--clean passed away? And does -economics furnish the better clue in modern days to those who are -called of God to preach? - -Do we need any 30,000 more preachers in the country trenches? Do we -need any shock troops at all? Isn’t it perfectly orthodox pacifism in -these days for all the picked soldiers in the war on the devil to fall -back into comfortable winter quarters? - - -_Side-stepping the Law of Hire_ - -I try to find my answer to these troubling queries in a glance down -the centuries. There are the barefoot Black Friars of Dominic and the -Gray Friars of Francis of Assisi (him who took poverty for his bride) -in the thirteenth century. They gloried in mean clothes, mean shelter, -mean food, as they ministered out of their own poverty to the poor, -the overlooked, the no-accounts (in cities, then, because the troop of -comfortable parsons were fattening in the popular country districts). - -There are the visionaries and enthusiasts: John Bunyan in the -seventeenth century; John and Charles Wesley in the eighteenth. In the -very face of the plentiful, complacent clergy, they fought the wolf as -if they had been apostles living in the first century. - -There is Jean Frederick Oberlin, in the early part of the nineteenth -century, who protested, “I do not wish to labor in some comfortable -pastoral charge where I can be at ease. I want a work to do which no -one else wishes to do, and which will not be done unless I do it.” - -Oberlin had just won his degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the -University of Strasburg, at a time when Strasburg was a city of France. -His “call” to pastoral duty came all of a sudden with the wind of a -February evening rushing in at the door as a stranger stepped into -the bare room. Struck with the poverty of the place, Pastor Stuber -introduced himself. Beard’s translation from the French presents us -with the picture: - -“I have learned about you, Herr Oberlin. Your name has been mentioned -to me as one who does not follow the beaten paths of ministerial -candidates. You have studied surgery and medicine. You have a knowledge -of botany and herbs. Is this not so?” - -“In my leisure hours I have paid some attention to botany, to -blood-letting, and the experiences of the anatomical room,” replied -Oberlin. - -“Will you be kind enough to explain to me what this little pan means -that I see here by your lamp?” asked Stuber. - -A deep blush ran over Oberlin’s face. “Pardon the cooking, Herr Pastor. -I take my dinner with my parents, and I bring away some bread which my -mother gives me. At eight o’clock I put this little pan over my lamp, -place my bread in it, with a little water and salt. Then I go on with -my studies.” - -“You are my man!” exclaimed Stuber, rising from his chair. “You live on -the diet of Lacedæmon. Yes, you are my man. I see you do not understand -me; but I have got my man, and I shall not let you go. I want you for -the pastorship of Waldbach in the Ban-de-la-Roche. There a hundred -poor and wretched families in want of the bread of life; four or five -hundred to shepherd and to save, poor, wretched, friendless.” - -Oberlin’s heart was in a tumult. This was just the field of labor he -had wished. But what of the difficulties? - -“The parish must be in a very cold region,” suggested Oberlin. - -“My dear Oberlin, I do not wish to exaggerate anything. Six months of -winter; at times the cold of the Baltic; sometimes a wind like ice -comes down from the mountain-tops above; the sick and dying are to be -visited in remote, wild, solitary places in the forests.” - -“And the parishioners, are they well disposed?” inquired Oberlin. - -“Not too much so, not too much. They are frightfully ignorant and -untractable, and proud of their ignorance. It is an iron-headed people, -a population of Cyclops.” - -Oberlin was taking in the situation. He slowly lifted his large blue -eyes and asked: “You say most of the parishioners are extremely poor? -Are there resources to aid the poor?” - -“The parishioners have nothing. Four districts even poorer than the -mother parish are to be served. Not a single practicable road. Deep -mud-holes among the cabins. The people, abandoned to indifference, have -not the least concern to meliorate their condition.” - -“Every one of your words has knocked at the door of my heart like the -blows of a hammer,” said Oberlin. And it was settled that Oberlin would -go to the mountains; and on March 30, 1767, in his twenty-seventh year, -Oberlin arrived at Waldbach. - -No single piece of literature equals the story of Jean Frederick -Oberlin’s pastorate in the Ban-de-la-Roche as an interpretation of -a country minister’s social, economic, and religious relation to -his parish. Overture after overture came to him during the years to -give up his laborious cares in the hills and take charge of a church -where cultured life would bring with it superior advantages, greater -recognized honor, and a satisfactory salary. His answer was the same to -all: - -“No, I will never leave this flock. God has confided this flock to me. -Why should I abandon it?” - -And in that out-of-the-way parish he played the shepherd and the man -for nigh on to sixty years. Like the Venerable Bede in the eighth -century, he died with the shepherd’s crook in his hand. - - -_Preachers’ Alibis Pass Inspection_ - -Now tell me, was Oberlin--remember he is only a hundred years -away from our time--temperamental and absurdly heroic? Was the -nineteenth-century wolf any less tender with the nineteenth-century -flock than the first-century wolf with the first-century flock? Is -the modern “world-the-flesh-and-the-devil” just a bugaboo to frighten -children? Is modern sin a whiter stain on the soul and more easily -washed out than in any previous century? It would take a braver man -than I am to champion modern life to such lengths. - -These 30,000 runaway American preachers,--they all have good reasons -for running. As alibis go, they are perfect--humanly speaking. I have -often heard the recital: “Easier life for the wife,” “education for -the children,” “an American standard of living,” “congenial parish,” -“books,” “travel,” “art,” “greater opportunity for service.” - -Just such reasons as bankers, clerks, teachers, merchants give for -their economic movements--to better themselves, following the law of -hire. And nobody protests; for nobody is in a position to protest, as -the law of hire seems to regulate the life of all. The protest--the -only great protest--comes everlastingly up from the first century: - -“A certain scribe came, and said unto Him, Master, I will follow Thee -whithersoever Thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have -holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not -where to lay his head.” - - -_The Plight of Him Who Stays_ - -The preacher that sticks by the farm community takes pot-luck with the -farmer himself; and the socio-economic plight of the farmer has had -front-page head-lines since the time of President Theodore Roosevelt. -To-day, in the time of President Calvin Coolidge, those head-lines have -become bigger and blacker. The farmer’s dollar, meanwhile, has become -small and weak. His taxes have risen overnight like a spring freshet. -His debts stare him in the face. His children are forsaking him for the -high wages and high life of the city. He cannot pay the wages of labor -in competition with automobile factories. - -The farmer’s social system in America has broken down under the strain -of new forces. He needs the social help of men and women who will -share his life, his privations, his hopes and fears. But they are to -be men and women who see the farmer’s plight and, giving themselves -to the task, struggle to organize a modern rural social system. It is -fruitless here to recite the tale of an underpaid country clergy, with -its sequel of a socially visionless, untrained set of honest parsons; -fruitless to point out how denominational strife has cut down the -preacher’s salary to less than a living wage. True, the country parson -has his poverty, and needs not to take any extra “vow of poverty.” This -sort of thing will go on and on until there is a right-about on the -part of those preachers who flee the country as if it were the plague. -Strong men of social vision, men who have come to understand the -farmer’s social and economic plight, must turn their back on the city, -and take up labors for the country flock. - - -_A New Type of Training School_ - -But will there ever be such a right-about-face of virile, holy men -until we have in America a new type of theological seminary for the -training of country-bound ministers of Christ? I doubt it. The present -schools of training are city-set, city-wise, city-satisfied; not but -that a score or more of them give some “rural courses”; not but that a -trickle of men has started already from them toward the country. You -can better understand the case if I were to ask what hope there would -have been for agricultural science, if total reliance had been placed -upon the great city universities, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago, -Pennsylvania, to develop the practice of farming. Each of these -universities has already made some notable contribution to agriculture -in one form or another; but the great hope of agriculture lay in a -farming college, and fortunately, the common sense of this country -perceived this truth. - -In like manner, the hope of the rural ministry, in my estimation, -lies in a rural theological seminary under the eaves of one of our -great colleges of agriculture--preferably a college of agriculture -in close proximity to a great state university. Here is the farmer’s -intellectual center. Here are gathered men and women of hope for farm -life. Here are the men and women who have social vision for rural -society. In touch with these men and women, under the spell of the -intelligent hope for the American farm and farmer, a school of religion -can grow up which will train men to go into the country and help redeem -it from its present social chaos. They can carve out community churches -of distinction. They can create a line of such churches, wholly in -rural territory, which will furnish steps of promotion for the most -strenuous and ambitious pastors. Flight is not the cure of the plight -of country parsons. The cure is rather intelligent consecration to the -country flocks. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -“But,” went on the author of Christian idealism,--mind you, in the same -breath in which He had paid to His followers the superb compliment, “Ye -are the salt of the earth,”--“if the salt have lost its savor--” - -And the story of Protestant home missions in rural America during the -last two or three decades has in it the taste of this “lost savor.” - -Let me lay bare before you,--with the shame of a churchman very much -embarrassed, it must be confessed,--not so much the facts of this -unsavory home-mission story, for the facts have been public property -for some years, as an interpretation of the facts and an appraisal of -the damage done to American churchdom. - -For the benefit of him who does not understand the situation at all, -a word is necessary. Here is the picture, and here are the essential -features in the picture, whatever variations there may be in minor -details. - - -_Twice Too Many Churches_ - -A community of rural folk of a definite population is spread out before -you. Christian churches, usually from two to ten in number, are alive, -if not all going concerns in the community. Whatever differences there -may be in the membership rolls--and of course we shall expect many -points of difference here--or in the number of services per week or per -month, or in the presence or absence of resident pastors, or in the -organization of the churches into Sunday-schools, mission societies, -clubs, social committees and the like--whatever the variations may be, -I say, the number of persons in the community, counting every single -soul, is far short of enough to man all of the churches, use any -reputable standard of church organization you please to measure by. - -Furthermore, in the type community in question, some or all of the -churches are weak and ineffective, if not virtually down and out. -Moreover,--and this is the central feature of the picture,--one church -is, or several or all of these churches are, receiving subsidies -in the form of money from the home-mission funds of the respective -denominational state body or national body or both, the sum of money -being just enough to keep the particular church competitively in the -running in that community. - -The essential fact in this situation may be stated thus: In a community -where there is known to be a mass of persons (in commercial parlance, -“volume of business”) sufficient to build and maintain only from -one to five churches, there are actually found to be from two to -ten; and the excess of churches over and above the number which the -volume of business justifies is the direct result of the injection of -home-mission money into the community. - - -_Veiled Hate_ - -It does not require a clever mind to know what will happen. When from -two to ten kernels of corn are planted in a piece of soil which has -nutritive elements sufficient to bring only from one to five stalks -to maturity, we know that a struggle for life is on which may doom -one stalk, several stalks, or even all stalks. It is so with the -competitive churches; but the corn simile fails to illustrate the case -at the really tragic point. The subsidized churches, which make up the -redundance, create in the community what is known by everybody there -to be a case of veiled malignancy. Self-respecting persons either hold -themselves aloof from formal religion there, or, conscience-stricken, -stand helplessly bewildered, or in plain disgust they pick up and -leave. And the community turns sour. The salt has lost its savor. - -If you would sense the disaster of this competition, please read -between the lines of the following resolution, passed within the last -year, by a minister’s association in a small rural community where six -Protestant churches are breathing the air that is hardly enough for -three! - - “Whereas we are joined together as Christian ministers in the - association of brotherly fellowship and helpful co-working, we hereby - agree that the following principles shall guide and control us - individually, and, so far as our proper influence can go, our several - congregations in our mutual relationships.... - - I. That we decline and discourage proselytizing in any form. - - II. While we recognize that every man is free to worship where and - as he wills, yet we realize that shifting from one denomination to - another save from absolute religious conviction is not edifying, but - harmful. Wherefore, we will not encourage those who from pique or - temporary dissatisfaction with ministers or people of their own local - congregations wish to unite with ours. - - III. That we will not, save in exceptional cases, receive into our - Sunday-schools as regular members thereof, children of families who - are affiliated with other congregations of the town. - - IV. That whenever we come across new-comers to the town who are - affiliated with, or declare preference for, some Christian body other - than our own we will not (if the church of their choice be represented - by a congregation here) ask them to unite with our congregation or - send their children to our Sunday-school until we have given to the - minister or church officials of the church of their preference the - name and address of such persons, and allowed reasonable opportunity - for them to claim their own.” - -It is clear on the face of it that the recognized principles of -Christianity have failed to keep these churches sweet to one another; -and resort is, therefore, had to a contract--a perfectly human document -of agreement, such as governs sinners in mundane business--in hope that -an-out-and-out bargain may accomplish what Christian love can not. - -These ministers agree _not_ to proselytize, _not_ to encourage -lifting members from another church, _not_ to receive children into -the Sunday-school from families of another flock, _not_ to pick up -new-comers without advertising them and waiting a reasonable length -of time for a claimant. This document of “nots”--of things not to -be done--naïvely uncovers the teasing things that were done behind -curtains. - - -_Dispensing With Mission Aid_ - -Before reading further, you will wish to know whether there is much of -this sort of thing going on in rural America; whether, in fact, it is -not fussing over trifles to beckon anybody to look at this thing. - -The best authorities, after a long study on this subject, are quoted as -estimating that the amount of Protestant home-mission money annually -wasted in competitive religion in rural communities is at present -$3,000,000; and if we may generalize from twenty-five thoroughly -studied counties, widely separated, where there are 211 churches aided -by home-mission money, of which 149 are disastrously competitive, “most -of the home-mission aid which is now granted could be withdrawn without -any danger whatsoever of leaving communities (rural) with inadequate -facilities.” - -The official report goes on to say, “Aside from any possible loss in -denominational prestige, which a purely objective study such as this -can not undertake to measure, on a careful examination of all the data -at hand, it seems that 149 of the 211 aided churches in these counties -might be dispensed with, to the general advantage of the religious life -in their communities and to the greater glory of the Kingdom of God.” - -This thing, look at it from any angle you please, is as rust on the -wheat, a rot in the potato, a blight on the peach-tree, a boll-weevil -in the cotton. God knows that the farmer already carries along enough -of a handicap in community matters without being afflicted with this -canker on his religion, as a discipline. It certainly looks like -jumping on the man that’s down. But this sin against the farmer is not -the worst of the wicked business. - - -_Worse Than Wasted_ - -What hurts most in this paradoxical practice is the prostitution of the -most beautiful gift in all religion. - -“Missions!” - -The very word conjures up angels of mercy. It brings to mind the last -words of Christ to his disciples and to his followers of all time. And -this mission money (it is not so pathetic that it sometimes is the -widow’s mite or that it is sometimes earned in feebleness with many a -pain) is the purest money handled by men. It is the visible sign of -tears of longing for love to govern men. Missions are the church’s -great romance. When out of the barrenness and weakness of my little -life, I put into the hands of the church a gift for the whomsoever, -in faith, I do it with a prayer that it will help bring peace to some -soul, harmony to some family, blessing to some community which is -beyond my power otherwise to help. - -To think, then, that the tip of your prayer and mine, the sweetest -thing we can give, is poisoned, and shot into a rural community, -there to hurt--Well the words, are not so much wanting to express -my indignation and yours, as the mind fails to comprehend how such -tactless blunders can happen. - -“Why do these church bodies do this wicked thing?” you enquire. - -Let the words of a high church official I once knew convey to you not -so much the real reason, as the state of mind out of which the thing -grows! - -“So long as there is a family of our faith in that village, that family -shall have the sacraments of our faith ministered to it.” - -He might just as well have added, “even though the heavens fall”; for -what he did was to force a subsidy into a community to help a small -faction of his particular church to survive when the majority of the -people, even the majority of his own little church organization, had -voted voluntarily to cut down the number of churches and eliminate the -unnecessary one. The high church official just ripped open a community -sore, when it had begun to heal. He poured gall in again after somebody -had sweetened community life for a moment. - - -_A New Religious Ethics Between Churches_ - -The egotism of a particular church group; the flaunting individualism -of a particular denominational combination of persons, whose personal -egos are, religiously, to be subjected, but whose combined ego is to be -exalted! Here is an uncharted sea of ethics and religion between church -groups. Shall it not be discussed? Especially when it grinds the rural -community to powder? Shall it be good Christianity for one Christian -sect to crowd and shove just like a bully in a mob? - -The day and generation is getting suspicious of pietists of all sorts -who can tell sinners how to behave individually to one another; yes, -who can even tell the labor group how to behave to the employer group -and the employer group to the labor group, but who have no conception -of what Christian principles apply as between one church group and -another church group in the realm of religion, except to beat the other -church group at all costs. If I were not heart and soul captured by the -character, life, philosophy, and guidance of Jesus himself, if I were -not thrilled by his words, and electrified by his life and death, more -and more the older I grow, I should be tempted to see in this cutthroat -group egotism of competitive Christian church groups a decline of -Christianity itself. - -“They all do it” is a lame excuse for sinners; but for a church body, -it is tragic. Think of a million people, more or less, possessing one -shibboleth, trying to embody earnestly the Christ, while deliberately -hamstringing another Christian church body which is doing the same -thing! - -But who is to blame? Whose sin is this prostitution of a holy thing? - -Did you ever happen to know the officials at the head of a Protestant -church body, either national or state? Did you ever know the persons -who distribute home-mission money after it is once collected? Did -you ever get a glimpse of the inside? Well, if so, then you know -how intensely human this situation is. You know how complex are the -forces that operate, how like politics are the powers behind the locked -doors. You know then that when you try to track this sinner, you can’t -find him. Nobody does the thing. Nobody does anything. Nobody is to -blame. The Christian leaders are not leading on such matters. They are -fighting the individual sins of the people. - -What would America think of a great Christian leader who should come -out and insist that Christian churches ought to love, respect, defer to -other Christian churches? What a stir in Christendom it would make for -a great man carrying his own church with him, let us say, to go up and -down the land preaching that membership in one Christian church should -thereby make us members in all Christian churches; preaching that we -should discount all the differences among Christian churches and love -all Christian churches for their likenesses? - -Look at this straw: - -In Canada an outstanding movement is nearing completion to unite -organically three great Protestant bodies, affecting more than three -quarters of a million of church members. The daily press recently in -explanation of the union, carried this item: - -“The Union had its origin in the conviction that many separate -churches of each denomination, especially in the rural districts, were -handicapped in limited membership and were unable to maintain properly -separate buildings and ministers. It is therefore a part of a tendency -in many other countries to submerge religious differences in an effort -at wider and more effective service.” - -This looks on the horizon like the peep of dawn of a new Christian -day--and what a dawn for the rural community that would be! - -But--lest we be too sanguine--that dawn has some climb to make yet. -Has not the Home Mission Council of the Federal Council of Churches -in America put into practice on the Western frontier for several -years principles of denominational courtesy? Have not the phrases of -their documents on “Overchurching,” “Underchurching,” and “Wasteful -Competition” seeped very generally throughout the settled portions -of the United States, as well as into the frontier? Have not the -Foreign Mission Boards of the various denominations for years gained -conspicuously the confidence of their laymen by the intelligent -distribution of territory among the missions of different church bodies -abroad? The fact is and must be reckoned with that all the words -and phrases and ideas and logic on this subject, pro and con, have -been bandied about until they are almost threadbare. The will to do, -however, is still very stubborn in old, established communities. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -“What is the difference between a state university and an ordinary -university?” - -A rather silly question, perhaps; but the answer that came back, -lightning-like, gave me the jolt of my life, and incidentally picked -out in my mind the pattern for the community church. Here is the -occasion and what took place: - -A reception for the distinguished regents of the University of -Wisconsin at the home of the president. In due time I found myself -approaching that awful reception line, terrifying, indeed, to me, a -new-comer. Suddenly I became aware that I was shaking hands with the -president, whose newness to the job of presiding over a university had -not entirely worn off. - -It was up to me to say something, and so, after the manner of a -pedagogue, I blurted out a question: - -“Mr. President, will you tell me the difference between a state -university and an ordinary university?” - -President Van Hise didn’t hesitate an instant with his answer. - -“I cannot speak for all state universities,” said he, “but this -university is run not for the students who happen to be here, but for -the persons who may never see the university--even to the last man, -woman, and child in the last community of the State.” - -I had become unconscious of the reception line, for I was startled -with an idea foreign to my bringing up, and I must make sure that I -perfectly understood. - -“Mr. President,” I interrupted, “do you mean to say that the -University of Wisconsin is not proud of turning out highly developed -personalities?” - -“Only as carriers,” President Van Hise quickly replied, in his -characteristic jerky manner; “carriers of ideas and attitudes even to -the isolated community and to the unpromising man. The students who are -here are here, as it were, by accident. But the university is run for -Wisconsin’s people at work.” - -I passed on down the line, and eventually out into a world strange to -me, where being a “carrier” of intellectual goods to the “isolated -community” and to the “last man” was an academic commonplace. - -Fourteen years of that day-by-day commonplace, however, never rubbed -off the beauty of its bloom for me; for here was a university running -at least neck and neck with church Christians in love for,--or duty -to, if you prefer it so,--the Gospel’s whomsoever. - -Having seen with my own eyes these last communities of a State -quickened into intellectual fervor through the devotion of university -men and women, do you think I do not know what would happen to the -spiritual life of these out-of-the-way communities if the supreme love -of devoted church men and women were brought to bear upon them? - - -_A Forecast Founded on Fact_ - -I will venture to forecast some of the things that would happen. -Every rural community would have a community church--a church for the -whomsoever, even to the last man, woman, and child in that community. -If topographically possible, every such church community would stretch -the bounds of its parish to include a thousand souls all told. In -communities of two thousand souls, there would be two churches--two -only, and both community churches. In communities of three thousand -souls, there would be three community churches, and three churches -only, every church, a community church; and no more churches than one -to one thousand of the community population; for it takes one thousand -of the population to maintain an effectual modern church; and every -church is to be a Christian community church as a safeguard against -paganism. But why am I so foolish as to foretell what would happen when -I can tell what is happening? - -There are to-day, we are told by those who keep informed on the -matter, a thousand community churches in the United States, of which -the greater part are in rural territory. In fact, it is reported that -new community churches are being organized at the rate, at present, -of six a month. To say that there is a community church movement -well-started is no exaggeration. Some States such as Massachusetts, -Vermont, Connecticut, Ohio, California, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, are -outstanding in the movement. - -Of course, the community church is not yet standardized, but it is -shaping up. To affirm that there are three types, as some say, or five, -as others put it, is more or less arbitrary. Still, for the sake of -the man who understands better by types, I may say that some community -churches like to be known as having arrived at the community ideal by -“federation” of two or more denominational churches, the new church -preserving connection with a national church body. - -Other community churches pride themselves on being “union” churches, -each having originated from the organic union of two or more churches, -or having been established as a “union” church in a community -possessing no church, but containing families of various denominational -connections in the past. The union church once formed usually stands -alone, without any denominational affiliation. - -Then there is the regular “denominational” church, which either -just happens to be or has come purposely to be the only church in -the community; and which makes the boast of existing for the whole -community rather than for its particular denominational group. - -And there are other varieties, which could indeed be dignified into -types, if we were pushed to it. The important thing, however, is that -out of a general unrest and dissatisfaction with churches that aim -to keep breeding up within themselves a highly pedigreed group of -personalities which possess decidedly exclusive, if not aristocratic, -characteristics, have arisen overnight, as it were, churches which -admit to the inner circle all the pedigrees and aim at the democratic -ideal of acting in the realm of religion for the last man, woman, and -child in the community. - - -_Churches for the Whomsoever_ - -Here we have before our very eyes, then, a kind of a church which is -run, as President Van Hise said his university was run, not for a -select few within its walls, but for the whomsoever within its own -territory; a church that views every single member as a “carrier” of -the goods of life to the last man, rather than as a precious mechanism -in which should be lodged all the mysteries of a peculiar cult. - -Look over some of the stories of these churches which are confessedly -trying to find their way to a new expression of social religion -designed to prevent the wastes of competitive Christianity. - -Here are the high points in an Idaho community church: Rural, in a town -of 600 souls. Presbyterian by connection, but with members formerly -of sixteen different denominations. Membership, 400. Plant worth -$50,000, with eighteen separate class-rooms for Sunday-school use. -A community house, with gymnasium. Rest room for women and girls. A -week-day church school using one hour a week of school time. In summer, -a daily vacation Bible school. A Boy Scout troop. A Campfire Girls’ -organization. Potato growers and fruit men freely using the community -hall. High moral standards reflecting the unity of the people. - -Take another community church of farmers in Iowa, in the open -country: An architecturally commanding building, providing, like -a well-organized school-house, many separate rooms for religious -instruction. The church has deliberately packed into its conception -of “community church” the idea that, assuming Christianity to have -contact with every phase of living, the church has responsibility -for providing the auspices under which all social activities of the -community take place. What more natural, then, than that the Fourth -of July celebration should be around the most beautiful spot in the -community, the church? Farmers’ Institute in the church? Young people -having a place for good times at the church? A church committee looking -after the matter of bringing good families on to farms that are for -sale or rent in the community? - -Take a certain community church in Indiana. Here is the story of an -honest struggle on the part of four church pedigrees to burn their -bridges behind them, and, pooling their resources, to start in anew. -The peculiar traditions of each cult, however, cling desperately to -each group, until, after trying in vain to carry these psychological -contradictions along in an artificial unity, in a moment of supreme -devotion to the good of their community, they strip off their -trade-marks, forget their shibboleths, and step forward into religious -freedom. - -The community-church movement is not going to create, I surmise, new -sects, leaving a residuum of several more denominations. Rather it -is a real step towards the organic union of kindred church bodies on -the one hand, and so a reduction of sects; and on the other hand, a -step towards democratizing every church and making it a real community -church. - - -_The Rural Dilemma and the Way Out_ - -It will require only another thousand of these brave, venturesome -community churches to turn every select-bodied denomination to looking -itself over. This self-criticism will lead the great Protestant church -bodies, let us hope, to a church conscience in regard to destructive -church competition. Then it will be an easy step to coming to terms -with one another in any locality, so as to give the community a chance -to have a community church. - -The community church, if we can have any faith in mankind, is sure -to come along strong. If high officials become obstructionists, they -will be swept away; for the people, when they once clearly see, will -have their way in churches and religion as in the long run they do in -government and politics. - -The sooner the great Protestant bodies confess their sins of -competition and put their houses in order, the sooner the new day will -come for the remote community and the last man. - -Some of us know what it is to be a devotee of a great church sect. The -absolute rightness of our cult has been no more questionable than our -own existence. When our sect was in parallel columns with any other -religious sect, we did not, could not yield right of way. - -But when we are all consciously confronted with the problem of -working out the religious life of 30,000,000 of isolated farm people, -we wake up to the fact that we occupy a position where cult pride, -cult individualism, and cult exclusiveness break down. Then we find -ourselves in a dilemma; we must leave the farmers to rot, a thing which -is unquestionably abhorrent to our cult; or we must modify our cult, a -thing which on the surface seems a sacrilege to do. - -But there is a way out of every dilemma; generally, however at the cost -of a bit of human pride. The community church shows the various noble -church cults one way out of the rural church dilemma. - -Read these bold words from a group of fifty young Methodist rural -workers penned to bishops: - -“To the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church: We the undersigned -members of the Methodist Episcopal Church appeal to you to give -prayerful consideration to the following suggestions: - -1. That the bishops, district superintendents, and other administrative -officers of our denomination cordially coöperate with the leaders -of other denominations in an effort to so organize rural church -geographical units that not more than one Protestant church to every -one thousand population shall prevail as a standard. - -2. That service to the community rather than to the denomination be the -basis on which ministers shall be trained, appointed, and promoted. - -3. That the Methodist Episcopal Church take the lead in the -give-and-take method with other denominations, even to the extent -of encouraging the discontinuance of small, struggling, competing -Methodist churches in the interest of rural Christian service to the -communities involved. - -4. That zeal for service to the entire community and a sympathetic -consideration for those whose background and training are non-Methodist -shall characterize the efforts of the Methodist Episcopal Church -wherever it alone occupies a rural field. - -5. That the conference membership of a Methodist Episcopal minister -shall not be jeopardized by appointment as pastor of a federated or -undenominational church where such a church is required for the largest -service to the community.” - -Theological students and college students are not to be outdone by -their elders in bravery. Read the following document for circulation -among the officials of the various church bodies--a document which -sounds like the “first call” for the rural community church: - -“We the rural college student delegates at the American Country -Life Association Student Conference believe that the minister who -serves in a church which has no right to exist loses respect for -his profession and can not do outstanding work; we believe that our -denominational boards which appropriate money we give to keep churches -going in overchurched communities and which send leadership into such -communities are only making people feel that the ideals of Christianity -are no higher than those of pagan religions. We would apply the -principles and teachings of Jesus Christ. Therefore we recommend: - -1. That students preparing to enter the rural ministry refuse to serve -charges in overchurched communities. - -2. That we, as rural students, do all in our power in our communities -and in places of leadership that we may attain to prevent -denominational church boards from pouring money and leadership into -communities, which is to be used to perpetuate denominational strife -that is destroying the religious life of our communities. - -3. That we pledge ourselves to endeavor to substitute the principles -and teachings of Jesus Christ for narrow denominational creeds and -doctrines. In view of this, we shall try to obtain an atmosphere and -physical equipment of rural churches, as well as church services -themselves, that shall be designed to meet the physical, social, -mental, and spiritual needs of the people who worship there, regardless -of their denominations.” - -The press carries the story that down in Georgia five hundred farmers -last season dedicated an acre of land apiece, with all it grew, to the -Lord. These pieces of land are spoken of generally in Georgia as the -“Lord’s Acres,” and the “Lord’s Acre Plan” is hailed as a hundred per -cent. way to finance the country church. - -The story goes on to say: - -“Farmers in the South are firmly convinced that the Lord’s Acre yields -better crops than surrounding land, and that the entire farm of the one -giving the acre is more productive than those of his neighbors.” - - -_The Community Church as a Democracy_ - -The community church strikes me as a Lord’s Acre in rural Christendom -bearing a crop dedicated to God. And, if I read the returns aright, -the comparative yield justifies the belief. It is a church of the -people--a democracy in very truth. Any subtle influence that would tend -to wash in upon this democracy and wear it down to a dominating set of -people or to a group of negligible folk or to a loose aggregation of -nondescripts must be walled off with reinforced concrete. - -A single type of religious temperament will not govern the range and -character of the community church. A constant sort of ideals that -appeals only to the seraphic souls or to other minds only in moments -of exalted pitch will, by a natural process of elimination, soon -reduce the church to a temperamental sect. No, the church is made up -of all temperaments the matter-of-fact, active, and practical; the -poetic, sentimental, imaginative; the strenuous; the easy-going; the -enthusiastic; the petty; the anxious; the generous, self-denying; the -jolly, optimistic; the gloomy, conservative; the militant, crusading; -the important; the retiring. Their interests, too--the interests of the -whole church are as broad and various as human nature. - -A cross-section of Christianity will reveal a ten-thousand fold -variegation of human streak and human color wherever religion has -filtered into actual life. This meeting-ground of all the higher -interests of the community will, therefore, be home for each interest. -As no single type of temperament should repulse the others and shrink -the church, so no single activity of the church should monopolize -the focus of attention. The mission interest, the Bible interest, -the educational interest, the interests social, musical, ceremonial, -disciplinary, the evangelistic interest, the civic and industrial -interest, the financial interest, the idealistic interest, both -personal and social--all these and the rest will have good footing in -the community church. - -A church which should undertake to be a democracy in fact would find -that there is only one way of “maintaining interest” enough actually to -keep bringing the people together. This way is sounding God’s summons -to keep going the redemption of its community at every point. The -summons to definite undertakings to improve community life is like the -summons to a pioneer homesteader to make a home fit for his family. He -gears his hands to ax and saw, to plow and hammer, and he knows that -he can change the wilderness. - -Besides stereotyped church procedure, a steady look at living -conditions in the community, with the determined expectation of -changing these conditions for the better; a look for the moral clues -to whole wretched situations; a look to disentangle from the chaotic -mass single, great, unmistakeable moral issues--these steady looks, -under God’s summons, must be given anew in every generation to the -kaleidoscopic facts of human life. - -The church that shall go into the business of becoming self-conscious -and of realizing its democracy will hear God’s summons to community -redemption and begin to re-scale the map of church importance and -usefulness in the community on heroic lines. - - * * * * * - - - - -Transcriber’s note - - -Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. -Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized where appropriate. - -Other spelling has also been retained as originally published except -for the corrections below. - - Page 127: “pinked out in my mind the” “picked out in my mind the” - Page 144: “which appopriate money we” “which appropriate money we” - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74857 *** |