{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74857/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74857","id":"gutenberg_74857","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74857","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - American","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Church attendance","Community churches","Rural churches -- United States"],"text":"EMPTY CHURCHES\n\n\n\n\n_By the Same Author_\n\n\n  RURAL LIFE\n  RURAL SOCIAL PROBLEMS\n\n\n\n\n  EMPTY CHURCHES\n\n  _THE RURAL-URBAN DILEMMA_\n\n  BY\n\n  CHARLES JOSIAH GALPIN\n\n  IN CHARGE OF THE DIVISION OF FARM POPULATION AND RURAL LIFE,\n  BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS,\n  UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  THE CENTURY CO.\n\n  _New York & London_\n\n\n\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY\n  THE CENTURY CO.\n\n  PRINTED IN U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\n  _In Memory of_\n  MY FATHER AND MOTHER\n  _Who Spent Their Lives\n  In Loving Ministration in\n  Country Parishes_\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis little book invites you to read it at a single sitting. If read\nlater, a section at a time, in the light of the whole story, it will\ngive you a better account of itself. It is, I frankly acknowledge,\nwritten out of emotion. It does not therefore, I fear, contain all the\nwords it implies--half the time falling into symbols and incidents to\nforce a meaning; half the time taking for granted that you do not care\nto open or close every side gate along the way.\n\nThe view of a layman, as this easily betrays itself to be, may prove\nsomething of a shock to the rank and file of the clergy; but it will\nserve, at least, to show that a section of laymen take religion more\nseriously after all than they do economics, which forms their daily\nadventure. Deep in our hearts, many of us know that business is the\ngreat masculine sport of the age; and in comparison, the r\u00f4le of\nthe priest and pastor and the function of the church lie in the far\ndifferent realm of the heroic. If I seem in this essay to expect too\nmuch of the church and too much of the preacher, my only apology is my\ninability to read into the Four Gospels, that stand on my desk along\nwith the other tools of life and work, a philosophy of ease or of\ncomplacent _laissez faire_.\n\nAlthough a confirmed lover of the country, the farm, the farmer and\nhis children, I am none the less a firm believer in the city--its\nnecessity, function, and destiny. Rural social welfare, as I see it,\nis of utmost concern to the American city. This is why empty churches\nalong the countryside bring tragedy to city and country alike. This\nis why ecclesiastical statesmen should go to the country and see\nwith their own eyes the havoc wrought upon the farmer\u2019s family by\ncompetitive religion among Protestants.\n\nAnd this is all the little book sets out to do--to take everybody to\nthe rural communities with wide-open eyes, to see the empty churches,\nthe children without God, the farm tenants without religion, the\nparsons on the run for the city, and the beginnings of a new type of\nrural church.\n\nI wish gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness in this essay to\nthe staff of the Institute of Social and Religious Research, New\nYork City, upon whose authoritative statements I have much relied.\nTo the Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia, I desire to express\nappreciation for their kindness in allowing me to reproduce here\nmaterials which have appeared in \u201cThe Country Gentleman\u201d during the\npast year.\n\n                                         C. J. GALPIN.\n\nMarch, 1925.\n\n\n\n\nEMPTY CHURCHES\n\n\n\n\nEMPTY CHURCHES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nRecently, in a cross-roads country church, a minister of the Gospel,\nunderpaid, somewhat shabby, but eager and inspired, a man with a\nmessage to give, stood before his congregation to present that message.\nThe flame of inspiration in his haggard young face flickered and died\nas he looked down at the scanty congregation assembled before him to\nhear the Word of God. At a glance he counted his handful of hearers.\nSix.\n\nThrough a window on one side of the little church, he could see\ntwo other meeting-houses nestling in the curve of the road. Through\na window on the other side, he looked out at a third--four country\nchurches of four Christian denominations, almost identical in doctrine,\nthere within two stone\u2019s-throws of one another.\n\nIn three of these churches, including his own, he knew that the members\nof the congregation might be counted upon the fingers of each pastor\u2019s\ntwo hands. The third church was closed that day; its flock could afford\nonly an occasional shepherd.\n\nIn all four of those churches put together, not one fair-sized\ncongregation. In all four, not one pastor paid a salary large enough to\nenable him to live on his income as a minister. In all four, men and\nwomen taxed by religion beyond their ability to pay, yet unable to\nsupport their church without outside aid.\n\n\n_Jealous Denominations_\n\nThe young minister thought with pain of other sections of the country\nthrough which he had traveled all day without seeing one church of any\ndenomination. He knew that an appalling percentage of farm communities\nthroughout the United States were entirely without churches, that\nthousands of children, hundreds of their elders, had never listened to\nthe preaching of the Gospel. Yet here there were four churches at the\ncountry cross-roads!\n\nThat afternoon that young pastor wrote me a letter, wrote it in pain\nand bitterness, but also in hope, in earnest desire to get the facts\nbefore the nation:\n\n I saw in the paper the other day some mention of the chief rural\n problems of the United States. May I call your attention to what\n ministers in every country district regard as the stiffest problem\n known to them and to their people? I refer to the problem of the\n competitive religion, which affects not only pastors, but the entire\n rural population, financially and spiritually, as well. The spiritual\n rivalry set in motion by well-meaning home-mission boards and zealous\n and jealous denominations is undermining the present and the future\n welfare of the country church by ignoring the law of supply and\n demand. If you can suggest any solution for this great problem, we\n shall all be grateful.\n\nThe case was in no way overstated by this young man. It is quite\ntrue that there are few, if any, greater rural problems to-day than\nthe problem of the country church. It is undeniable that any honest\nstudent of conditions in rural churches is confronted by staggering\nand depressing statistics of overchurching and underattendance in some\nsections, and of entire lack of attendance due to no churching at all\nin others.\n\nAny map that showed the present rural church distribution of the United\nStates would be alarmingly reminiscent of a map of a country with large\nareas of sterile famine-land. Nine persons out of every hundred in\nrural America can not get to church because there is no church for them\nto attend. This means that one seventh of all the rural communities of\nthe United States are entirely without Protestant churches. Pathetic\nreports of the spiritual hunger of these land dwellers, living in a\nChristian nation yet entirely shut off from Christian organization of\nevery kind, come from these communities.\n\n\u201cNo Protestant sermon has ever been preached in this locality,\u201d is one\nS O S sent out from a neighborhood of two hundred persons. \u201cNot a child\nin this district has ever attended Sunday-school,\u201d deprecates another\ncommunity of approximately the same size. \u201cThis back-to-the-land\nmovement is fine, but why should loyal land dwellers have to condemn\ntheir children to heathenry?\u201d demands a distracted mother, in a remote\nsection of a Western State. \u201cMy children are growing up to be little\nsavages, as far as religion is concerned. They have never been inside a\nchurch in their lives, and they don\u2019t know what Sunday-school means.\u201d\n\nOnly one fifth of the rural population goes to church.\n\nTwo fifths of the rural churches of the country are standing still or\nlosing ground.\n\nA quarter of all rural churches have no Sunday-school.\n\nOne fifth of all rural churches are kept alive by home-mission aid. Of\nthese subsidized churches, a large number are in active competition\nwith churches of very similar doctrines.\n\nSeven out of every ten rural churches have only a fraction of a pastor\napiece.\n\nOne third of all rural pastors receive so low a salary that they can\nlive only by working at some other occupation.\n\nOne half of the rural churches of the country make an annual gain in\nmembership of as much as 10 per cent.\n\nIn striking contrast to this churchless seventh of the country, are\nthe other six sevenths of rural America, many of them so overchurched\nthat they are crying out for relief from the burdens the churches\nare laying upon them. There are ten times as many churches for every\nthousand persons in some of the rural districts of the United States as\nthere are in New York City. Yet the percentage of attendance for every\nthousand persons is slightly lower in these rural sections than it is\neven in New York. Obviously, such a showing indicates a startling lack\nof system in the distribution of rural churches, a woeful waste of the\nreligious potentialities of the country.\n\nRecently, a thorough survey of the rural church problem of the United\nStates was made for the first time in the history of the country, under\nthe direction of H. N. Morse and Edmund de S. Brunner, of the Institute\nof Social and Religious Research, of New York. Some of the statistics\nobtained by them are presented in the foregoing paragraphs.\n\nThese facts, of course, offer a severe shock to those who have the\nlittle white church of the countryside enshrined in memory along with\nthe little red school-house. We have fallen into the rut of taking it\nfor granted that our country churches not only keep pace with the best\nreligious life of the nation, but even stay a step or two in advance,\nif not in theology, at least in interest in godly things and in piety.\nWe have come to think of country folk as the true church-goers of the\nUnited States. To this sentimental point of view the facts stated offer\na true affront.\n\n\n_Fewer Church-goers_\n\nThere are to-day approximately 101,000 rural churches in the United\nStates. A long time ago, when there were only a hundred such churches,\nvirtually the entire country population attended them. Some time\nlater, when there were a thousand churches of the kind, the average\nof attendance was still exceedingly high. But of recent years the\npercentage of rural church-goers has almost seemed to be in an inverse\nratio to the increase in churches. One out of every five is not a\nshowing that would have brought joy to the Puritan Fathers. What is the\nreason for this precarious situation in the rural churches of our\nnation? Does it indicate that our country population is made up of a\nless God-fearing folk than in former years? Does it demonstrate that\nreligion is less near to the hearts of the farm workers of the United\nStates than is true of its city dwellers? Or are these conditions the\nlogical outgrowth of a faulty system, the inevitable result of a church\ndistribution spiritually and economically unsound?\n\nMore than one thing must be taken into consideration in any fair-minded\nattempt to answer these questions. For instance, there is the fact that\nduring the past few years the number of tenant-farmers in the United\nStates has steadily increased, until now thirty-eight per cent. of the\nfarms are tenant operated, most often on the basis of the one-year\nlease. Any fact that tends to make the farmer more or less a transient\nin the community naturally deters him from forming social or religious\nrelationships.\n\nAnother reason frequently given for the low average of rural church\nattendance is that so high a percentage--nearly 30 per cent.--of\nthe nation\u2019s land workers are new Americans, the foreign-born, or\nthe children of the foreign-born. There are States, such as North\nDakota, where nearly every other farmer belongs to other than American\nnativity, and whole sections of the country, as in the Middle West,\nwhere foreigners are in excess of two-fifths of the population. It is\nestimated that at the present time more than fifty per cent. of these\npeople are unministered to by any church, Catholic or Protestant. Where\nanything like an earnest and comprehensive attempt has been made by\nchurches to be of aid to them, as among the Mexicans of California, it\nhas been marked by astonishing results. Then why have the churches done\npractically nothing for the foreign-born in rural sections? If the new\nAmerican can make good on the land, is it too much to ask the church to\nmake good with the new American?\n\nWhen I hear it said that no one is really interested in religion any\nmore, I cannot help thinking of an elderly Yankee farmer in the State\nof Vermont, one J. C. Coolidge, father of our President, a man who\ntalks little about religion, but who for years has given virtually\nall his leisure time, and a considerable slice of time not leisure at\nall, to keeping alive the little white church near his farm at Plymouth\nNotch. He hauls the wood from his own land that the congregation of\nthat little church may listen in comfort to the Word of God; he even, I\nam told, does the janitor work himself, since the church has no funds\nfor a janitor. There is nothing especially remarkable in this. There\nare thousands of such men all over our country, men to whom the church\nis a thing to make sacrifices for, to keep alive at whatever cost.\n\nBut in many districts it really seems that the fewer churches a county\nis able to afford, the more it is apt to have. Out of the 211 churches\nfinancially aided by home-missions societies in several counties where\nintensive studies were made by the Institute of Social and Religious\nResearch, I am told that it was found that 149 of these churches could\nhave been dispensed with without essential loss to anyone. All but\nthirty-four were competitive.\n\n\n_Untrained Country Preachers_\n\nAnother grave charge is made against the church to-day in our country\ndistricts. Farmers feel that they are neglected by the ministers of\ntheir churches.\n\nIt is also charged that many rural pastors lack both adequate training\nand ability for their high calling. The real marvel is that so many of\nthese men are of the high type they are.\n\nIt has to be admitted that there is ground for the charge of\nincompetency among some of the rural pastors of the United States.\nThese men, it is true, are most inadequately prepared for their work.\nHow are they to afford more training for a calling which will never\npay them any returns upon it? That these men can develop into able\npreachers has been demonstrated by those who have had the opportunity\nto complete their courses in the summer school for ministers,\ninaugurated, I believe, by the Presbyterian Board and now conducted by\nseveral denominations. But most of them do not have this chance.\n\nIt is competitive religion that is largely responsible for these two\ndangerous factors in rural religious life--the non-resident pastor,\ntoo occupied to be a true spiritual shepherd; and the incompetent\npastor, too incapable to be a leader of his people.\n\nBut Christianity will not vanish from our country districts. Nowhere\nis there better soil for the seeds of true religion than in the sturdy\nsoul of rural America.\n\nIt is not so much _isms_ or _ologies_ that the rural population wants\nas it is religious facilities for themselves and for their children.\nSome time ago, when a study of fifteen Western States was made by the\nHome Mission Council, it mentioned the following fact:\n\n\u201cThe general feeling manifested by the returns shows little care for\ndenominationalism. What these people want is some one to present Bible\nfacts in an acceptable manner.\u201d\n\n\n_The Call Can Be Met_\n\nThis is as true to-day as it was when it was written ten years ago.\nSunday-schools for their children; an adequate number of churches, not\nfewer than will meet their needs or more than they can support; usable\nchurches, open the year round, with able ministers in charge--these are\nthe things the population of our rural districts wants.\n\nHow are they to get them? By the installation of system into the\nreligious life of the country sections. There are enough churches in\nthe United States to-day, if they were distributed on the basis of\na real need rather than on the grounds of competitive religion, to\nreach the remotest sections of our country. The money now expended\non nonproductive churches would purchase real vitality for essential\nchurches all through rural America.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n    \u201c_Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,\n    When wealth accumulates, and men decay._\u201d\n\n  GOLDSMITH.\n\n\nRegular men and women long for children as they long for good luck,\nlong life, and sweet happiness. But they do not want just children,\nany kind whatever so that they be children. No indeed! It is always a\nwhole, healthy child, a bright, intelligent child, a loving, obedient\nchild, a beautiful, virtuous child, that lives warm in their dreams.\nAnd a child with such characteristics costs more than many men and\nwomen can pay; for a well-bred child, like a well-bred colt, is the\nproduct of many favoring tides of good fortune.\n\n\n_Farms, The Place of Children_\n\nSo it is that the Johns and Marys who leave the farm and its open\nspaces for city life give up having children of their own,--often\nwithout knowing it when they leave the country, to be sure,--and find\nthemselves later doomed to work out human contentment in some other\nway; for the high cost of city space, of just sufficient elbow-room for\na child to grow in and acquire the human characteristics desired, is\nalmost as prohibitive as if a law were on the statute-books forbidding\nthe rearing of children in city blocks. While my critic is biting his\nthumb at this \u201cexaggeration,\u201d gravely asserting that he knows there\nare many families of children in our American cities, I have caught\nhis eye and will hold it long enough to tell him a thing disclosed by\nthe last United States Census report, viz., among the thirty millions\nof farm people, there are 4,000,000 more children under twenty-one\nyears of age than there are among any thirty millions of city people.\nAnd this bald fact virtually declares the truth I am uttering--that\nthe country contains the children of the nation, that the farm is\nthe natural rearing-ground of well-bred children, and that the city\ncore--the stamping-ground of business and adults--abhors children as\n\u201cnature abhors a vacuum.\u201d\n\nMy story will not reach home, however, unless one pauses a moment to\nlet this census fact soak in. Here is an excess of children living on\nour farms that would make a small nation,--bigger than Switzerland,\nbigger than Chili, than Norway, than famous little agricultural Denmark.\n\n\n_Cities Get Youth from Farms_\n\nAnd what will become of this excess of children? What else than this?\nThe farms will manage to feed them, clothe them, educate them until\nthey come of age, when, possessed of the strong right arm, they will\nturn their backs on the farm and farming, and go to recruit the\nnerve-fagged industry of cities.\n\nThe farms feed industry, professional service, and city life with\nmuscle, intellect, and imagination. This is the romance, and there is\nnot a word in it of wheat, corn, cotton, or cattle. This every-day\nfunction of the farm, often spoken of lightly, almost as if it were a\npoetic fiction, is the solid stratum of fact upon which the plot of my\nstory rests. The annual editorial blast, \u201cKeep the boy on the farm,\u201d\nnever concerns this slowly moving stream of young adults cityward, for\nthese are a surplus, an excess. And they must go, as sure as fate. A\nlegion of editorials could not dam back this flow.\n\nWe are not without some definite information, moreover, as to how this\nsurplus of farm population works its way to the cities of the nation;\nfor a unique study has been made by the United States Department of\nAgriculture--of the movement of 3000 young people from a thousand farms\nin one community--over a period of one hundred years--a community\nwhere (and this fits into my story) the God of the Puritans has been\nknown by the children from the days of the first log cabins. We know\njust which farms sent their surplus crop of young folk away. We know\nexactly where they went in the United States. And, furthermore, we know\nwhat vocations they recruited, and what achievements in these vocations\nthey made. In a nutshell, we know in some measure what the contribution\nof human force and influence was from these thousand farms, farm by\nfarm, to the upbuilding of the cities of the nation. The unfolding\npicture of this farm community\u2019s impact upon the nation\u2019s life during\nthe century just passed is precisely the thing many persons have looked\nfor to put national meaning into the daily disappearance from the\nfarms of the surplus of young adults which every few years amounts to a\nstrong small nation poured into city industry.\n\nI cannot pass this remarkable study by without naming some of the men\nwho as \u201cexportable surplus\u201d left the old farmstead to work out careers\nin cities. I will name only those whom you know, and know to honor.\nYou remember Governor George Peck of Wisconsin. You knew him as the\n_Peck_ of \u201cPeck\u2019s Bad Boy.\u201d Farm number 555 among these thousand farms\ngave Governor Peck to Wisconsin. Governor Reuben Wood of Ohio came from\nfarm number 119. Governor Cushman Davis, of Minnesota, afterward United\nStates Senator, was the product of farm number 556, just as much as the\nwheat from that farm was a product and went into national trade. Farm\nnumber 618 gave Charles Finney to American Christendom and to Oberlin\nCollege as its honored president. Farm number 701 raised Charles N.\nCrittenton, gave him to the wholesale drug business in New York City,\nin which he accumulated wealth with which he put into operation his\nideal for friendless girls. The Florence Crittenton Rescue Homes for\ngirls in seventy-two cities of the United States tells his story.\nOne of the little hamlets in the community produced Daniel Burnham,\nAmerica\u2019s leading architect, at home equally in Chicago, New York, or\nRome, Italy.\n\nBut these brighter lights of the exodus do not by any means convey\nwhat is perhaps after all the greater influence and might of the\nmajority of the human surplus who went forth and found their places and\nplayed their r\u00f4les as less widely known personalities in enterprises\nof banking, manufacture, teaching, or merchandizing, where they helped\nweave the fabric of America and its institutions as we know them in\nevery-day life.\n\nThe force of this plain story of the human product of good farms, in\na community where God was known, lies not in what might be considered\nthe exceptional character of the community, but rather in the fact\nthat the story of this particular community of farms is the story, in\none respect or another, of all American farm communities. This study\nconvinces both men of the farms and men of the cities,--as it sets\ntheir memories to work about the migrants from the land whom they have\nknown--that as the farming communities wax or wane, so wax or wane the\ncities and the nation.\n\n\n_Many Children Virtual Pagans_\n\nAnd here an unsuspected villain enters my story. Do not laugh in\nyour sleeve when you discover that the villain is a fact, merely a\nfact; but, by the by, a very stubborn and blistering fact. Of the\nfifteen millions of farm children--children under twenty-one years of\nage,--more than four millions are virtual pagans, children without\nknowledge of God. If, perchance, they know the words to curse with,\nthey do not know the Word to live by. This saddening fact is the solemn\ndisclosure of the recent study, already mentioned, made by the Social\nand Religious Institute of New York City.\n\nA survey of 179 counties in the United States, representatively\nselected, enables the Institute with confidence to assert that\n\u201c1,600,000 farm children live in communities where there is no church\nor Sunday-school of any denomination,\u201d and \u201cprobably 2,750,000 more\nwho do not go to any Sunday-school, either because the church to which\ntheir parents belong does not have any, or because they do not care to\nconnect themselves with such an organization.\u201d\n\nOne does not get the real inwardness of this fact until one appreciates\nthat these 1,600,000 of pagan children are not scattered evenly, or\nmore or less evenly, among the other millions of children who are in\ncontact with the Bible, but are in a great measure homed in bibleless,\ngodless communities. The nation might possibly assimilate a million\nbibleless children if they were brought up among several millions of\nchildren who know the concepts of religion; but absorbing godless\nchildren in great numbers from whole godless groups is a bird of a\ndifferent feather. What is still more disconcerting, the trend, we are\nled to suppose, is not from bad to better, but from bad to worse.\n\n\u201cThere is no national passion for seeking out the godless community and\nsetting the Bible there,\u201d we hear on every hand.\n\n\u201cThe promoters of Bible study are too apologetic to business, to\neducation, to pleasure, even, and go not about their tasks as those who\nhave a commission from the nation,\u201d many say.\n\nBut these bare statements fail, perhaps, to get hold of us. We must\nhave particulars and the pulse of the thing. And so I wish to take a\npage out of my own experience and let you read it.\n\n\n_Trapped in a Godless Community_\n\nMy duties, a while back, took me into the clover-bearing hills of a\npromising county in a dairy State. I stayed the night with a farmer\u2019s\nfamily, enjoying the hospitality and confidences of the home. Never\nshall I forget two episodes of the evening.\n\nThe milking was finally over--twelve mighty good cows. I had been\nallowed to milk three, taking the mother\u2019s place on her favorite\nmilking-stool. Certain cows were \u201ctender\u201d and responded kindly to her\ngentler touch.\n\nThe house was on a side hill sloping steeply to the road, and across\nthe road was a thinly timbered twenty-acre lot. The warm milk had\nbeen poured into ten-gallon cans and carried up to the house, where\nstood, in a neat little milk-house, a cream separator. When all was\nready, the separator began to sing, the cream came trickling out, the\nskim-milk poured into a ten-gallon can, as the gaunt six-foot-three,\nnarrow-shouldered farmer turned the crank. At the first whirring\ntune-up of the separator, I hear a scurrying of feet in the timber lot\nbelow, and soon a regiment of hogs and pigs were at the fence, standing\nwith hind feet in the long trough, front feet over the top rail of the\nfence, black heads in a row, beady little eyes peering up the hill,\nopen mouths giving vent to a long-drawn squeal of jubilant petition.\nAs the whir of the separator grew into a liquid hum, the squealing\nchorus rose to heaven, filling the valley, investing the farm, like a\npiece of symbolism, with the imperious demands of animals and crops\nupon the total energies of the family. Finally the last drop of milk\nwent through the separator. Then the father put his hands to two\nhandles of two ten-gallon cans of skim-milk; one son grasped the other\nhandle of one can; another son caught hold of the handle of the second\ncan; while each son in his remaining hand held a pail of the milk. Then\nthey three, with two cans and two brimming pails, took up their stately\nmarch abreast down the hill to the squealing chorus at the trough.\nIt looked for all the world like some priestly ritual. The milk was\npoured into the trough. The pigs ceased to chant and began to suck,\nguzzle, push, and grunt. So the day\u2019s work was over, and we sought the\nhouse. Darkness fell over the hill and valley and the filled pigs lay\ndown to sleep; while the farmer gathered his family about him, took up\nhis Bible and read the Scriptures, even as did the cotter, whom Burns,\nthe farmer Scot, made us know:\n\n    The priest-like father reads the sacred page,\n      How Abram was the friend of God on high;\n    Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage\n      With Amalek\u2019s ungracious progeny;\n    Or how the royal bard did groaning lie\n      Beneath the stroke of Heaven\u2019s avenging ire;\n    Or Job\u2019s pathetic plaint and wailing cry;\n      Or rapt Isaiah\u2019s wild, seraphic fire;\n      Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.\n\nConversation in the morning brought out the fact that this hillside\nhome was virtually the only one, in this clover community, struggling\nto bring up its children in the knowledge of God. No church, no\nSunday-school, no parochial school, no Bible class. The gaunt father,\ngathering emotion as he overheard his own story, said:\n\n\u201cI have only one problem now. In twelve years my cows and hogs have\npaid for themselves, paid for my farm, built my barn and house. The one\nproblem is not money any longer, but it is my boys and girls. They are\njust now at the point where the home can no longer hold them, and they\nwill, I fear, sink into the mire of this godless community.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean, \u2018mire\u2019?\u201d I inquired.\n\n\u201cWell, it is hard to put into words,\u201d he continued. \u201cPerhaps this will\ngive you some idea: since I have been here, now twelve years, not a\nwedding has taken place anywhere hereabouts that has not been forced.\nAnd this is not the worst of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you start a Sunday-school?\u201d I urged.\n\n\u201cToo late!\u201d he sighed. \u201cMy children are almost beyond me. I was, I\nfear, too busy with my cows and pigs, and the children just grew up\nbefore I knew it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat will you do?\u201d I could not refrain from asking, more to myself\nthan to him, in my own perplexity, as I tried to share in the problem.\n\n\u201cThe only thing I can do,\u201d said he, as if the conversation had\nstrengthened a previous resolution half-heartedly entertained, \u201cis to\nyield to my wife\u2019s judgment; sell the farm, go to some safe community\nwhere there is a church, Sunday-school, and a high school. We people\nhere in this community made our great mistake in starting out wrong. We\nmade a religion of our pure-bred hogs and cattle, and let our boys and\ngirls go to the dogs.\u201d\n\nThis tale of children, who turned out to have been unwittingly\nsidetracked by cows and hogs, recalled my own experience in breaking\nsome new land in the Skims at a period in my life when the doctor had\nsaid: \u201cWhat you need is to get close to the land. Crawl around on the\nsoil a year or two and you will learn over again how to sleep.\u201d\n\nWell, with my old horse The Cid and a mail-order one-horse plow, I\nwent through the motions of plowing that pine cut-over from which the\npines had been skimmed off like cream from a milk-pan. Surveying the\nscratched and torn field, somewhat bruised and bleeding, I will declare\nit was, I said to myself:\n\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look really plowed; but it will be all right when I get it\ndragged.\u201d\n\nThen The Cid did his very best at dragging. Dutifully--with an inner\nchuckle, I am sure, at my green expectations, for he was a seasoned\nold Skims horse himself--he plodded along and over the field. At last\nI stood sweating and weary, looking it over, and was obliged to own up:\n\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look dragged; but it will be all right when I get it\ncultivated.\u201d\n\nI went through the form of marking and planting, and though I couldn\u2019t\nsee the rows very well, I quieted my discontent by saying to myself,\n\u201cIt will be all right when I get it hoed.\u201d\n\nBut when the corn came up, it was accompanied by such a community of\nweeds, briers, grass, and small bushes, that I couldn\u2019t cultivate\nbecause I couldn\u2019t see the corn.\n\nAfter I had in much perplexity stared at the cultivator and then at the\nfield, I looked that piece of work square in the face and averred:\n\n\u201cIf I ever plow again, I am not going to kid myself into thinking that\nthe cultivator will straighten out the sins of the plow.\u201d\n\nThis raw-boned farmer and his wife, possessed of the fairest intentions\nin the world for their children, had become trapped in a godless\ncommunity before they were aware of it; all because the seed-bed of\nhuman life had not been plowed deep with social religion at the very\noutset. Is this community a fair example of bibleless country groups? I\nbelieve it is. I am sorry to admit it, but I believe it is a fair type.\n\n\n_When the Bible Has No Interpreter_\n\nIf a nation can not build civilization securely without a knowledge of\nhistory, neither can children build character without a knowledge of\nthose men and women of history who have essayed to know God. The Bible\nis the story of such persons. It is biography. It is lives of those in\nwhom the soul of man in his search for God has risen to its highest\nlevels. There is no substitute for this Bible biography,--except, if\nyou please, another Bible.\n\nAnd perhaps, in point of Bible illiteracy, next to the community which\nhas no Bible in it, lies the community in which, though there is a\nBible, the leaders in teaching the Bible, or rather in explaining\nthe Bible to the children, are themselves grossly ignorant, if not\ndemoralized. The Bible is a book of many stories, of a host of\nincidents, of innumerable ideas. Selection is vital. To select from the\nBible and hand on its meaning in grave ignorance is to run the risk\nthat all ignorance runs. Here is where many a rural community suffers,\nwhen it is commonly thought to be provided with a knowledge of God.\n\nIt fell to my lot recently to visit a small rural community of\ntwenty-five families of this type. Only three of the families were\ntotally without church connections, or at least church traditions.\nOne church building has fallen in. One lies torn down. The third,\nstill standing, is rotting. It is supposed to be \u201chaunted.\u201d Splits\ndisorganized and discouraged the people. A fourth rude church structure\nhas come, but splitting up from within has begun. Ignorance of a crass\nsort rules. The Bible has had no well-balanced soul to interpret its\nwonderful truths.\n\nThe family histories of this settlement run--to speak very grimly\nindeed--like an anthology of despair and depravity. Listen:\n\n\u201cShe drowned her babies regularly in the creek.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe was said to be the father of his own daughter\u2019s first child.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis woman was subnormal and has three illegitimate children.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis other woman is a menace to every man in the community.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe committed suicide.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe poured kerosene on the cat and set fire to it.\u201d\n\n\u201cBoil nails in water to find out if person for which water is named\ncommitted a crime. If nails crackle and knock against the pan, then\nperson named is guilty.\u201d\n\n\u201cA person dies hard on feathers. We took mother\u2019s bed out from under\nher three times when we thought she was dying.\u201d\n\n\u201cOur children don\u2019t need to go to school to learn to read. The Spirit\nteaches them to read.\u201d\n\nThe people of these families looked, in the face, like people you meet\nin any fair group of folks; but their minds, their deeds, their hopes,\ntheir fears! There\u2019s the rub. Is this group of twenty-five families\ntypical of country communities where the Bible is fought over by blind\nleaders of the blind? I am afraid it is. I admit it with shame, but I\nadmit it. The Bible,--as if it were a plow found by persons who knew\nnot its use, but who scrapped hard for its possession as an ornament\nof their dooryards,--the life-giving Bible in these hands is still a\nclosed book and a locked-up treasure.\n\n\n_Pedigreed Austerity Better Than Ignorance_\n\nHuman life at its best is no mere accident which may happen anywhere\nunder any conditions. The best has its pedigree. It is the result\nof infinite pains with children as with crops and animals. Even the\naustere, narrow-gaged leadership having a pedigree is far better than\nthis ignorant, illiterate type.\n\nI remember well as a lad how my father, a country minister, collegebred\nand trained in the theological school of his particular denominational\nstripe, stood rock-like in his parish for temperance. It was a grape\ncountry, with several wine distilleries. My father taught abstention\nfrom wine-drinking and preached against the distilleries. One\nchurch pillar was in the wine business and furnished the sacramental\nwine. My father finally carried his logic to the point where he made\nannouncement:\n\n\u201cNext Sunday at the Communion we shall not use fermented wine.\u201d\n\nSunday came. A larger congregation than usual assembled. There was a\ntenseness of silent emotion in the stiff Sunday-dressed village and\nfarmer folk, which I can feel yet, after forty years.\n\nThe communion-table was set. I see my father now, as he picked up the\nflagon of wine and poured into the chalice. He paused--on his face a\nsudden look of bewilderment. Then slowly he poured the chalice of wine\nback into the flagon, strode to the door, and emptied the contents on\nthe ground. Quietly resuming the ceremony he said:\n\n\u201cWe will commune without wine to-day.\u201d\n\nThe distiller had done his dirty work and put one over on the country\nparson. But the parson, although he caused a sense of consternation\nto creep over the church folk,--akin to the horror in the multitude\nwhen _Count Antonio_, in Anthony Hope\u2019s tonic story, laid hands on\nthe Sacred Bones in midstream,--by this daring act helped plug the\nbung-holes and spike the spigots in the cellars of that county. And the\nwhole countryside, be it said, responded to the resolute will of my\nfather to make God known to a community steeped in wine.\n\nMy father probably shared the narrow-mindedness of his particular\npedigree, but he certainly hewed to the line like a prophet of old.\nHis crop of young converts came usually in winter; but the snow and\nice had no deterring chill for him. He never thought of postponing\nthe baptismal rite till summer. He had a large hole cut through in\nthe little river near by, for water helped mightily in his system of\ndoctrine. He didn\u2019t spare me either. At eleven years of age, he led me,\nas he did my country playmates, out of the sleigh, down the snowbank,\ninto this ice-water. There was no softening of the ideals of life\nin that parish, I can tell you. And the God of Daniel was known and\nacknowledged there in fear and trembling.\n\nWhen, in after years it fell to my fortune to live on the Skims and to\nwoo sleep with logging, stumping, and \u201cscratching\u201d the land, I saw\nwhat a real Sunday-school would do even in a submarginal community for\nthe children of the pine cut-over. There was the farmer widow woman\nwith the man\u2019s hands. What would have been her chances of rearing her\nseven children to usefulness and self-respect without that weekly\ncommunity-school under good leadership?\n\nI hear again her breezy, cheery call to her brood as she drives up to\nthe little church.\n\n\u201cPile out.\u201d\n\n\u201cPile in,\u201d when Sunday-school is over.\n\nA slap of the lines, and a piece of rural America goes back to its\ncabin, minds sprayed with race lore. A mighty wholesome sight in a\ncommunity of tools with broken handles, of harnesses toggled with\nhay-wire, of fortunes \u201cbusted\u201d, of the blind, and of those who could\nnot sleep.\n\nThere was the old retired farmer, Scotch McDugle, too, eighty years\nold. He would come over from next door of an evening and swap Skims\nstories for a cheery welcome and a listening ear. It would be\nmidwinter. The sheet-iron stove showed red.\n\n\u201cCome in, Mr. McDugle,\u201d my wife would say. \u201cTake off your hat and\nmittens.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, no, no,\u201d he would reply, \u201cjust stepped in to say \u2018howdy.\u2019 Can\u2019t\nstay a minute.\u201d\n\nThen McDugle would settle down for the evening close to the red-hot\nstove, mittens drawn tight, Scotch cap pulled close down over his ears.\nAs he got limbered in memory, he would go through a set of queer\nantics with his lips and tongue--little dry, staccato sputters. He\nreminded me in this of a courtly neurasthene I once met who said, as he\nwent through similar tongue motions, \u201cI beg your pardon, but I have a\nhair on the tip of my tongue which I seem never able to get off.\u201d\n\nFarmer McDugle\u2019s favorite theme was the making of great American men\nout of \u201chard knocks\u201d and \u201ca good pinch of God.\u201d He reveled in Lincoln,\nwhom he had known; and he never got tired of weaving the people he knew\nin with the race-heroes of all time.\n\nAs I think of McDugle and his ilk in these later days, I can not help\nsuspecting that bleak little Scotland and God in the life, despite\nthe stain of the \u201cwee drap o\u2019rye,\u201d account for many of America\u2019s\nman-making rural communities.\n\n\n_When Catholic and Protestant Agree_\n\nThe chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Catholic Rural\nLife Conference, in a call published (in the April 1924 number of \u201cSt.\nIsadore\u2019s Plow\u201d) for the second annual Catholic Rural Life Conference,\nsays:\n\n\u201cWe have two distinct entities of population, and, we might say, of\ncivilization in the United States--the urban and the rural. The church\nis decidedly urban. So far as the Church is concerned, the country\ntowns and villages are still \u2018pagani.\u2019\u201d\n\nThus you see Protestant and Catholic agree in seeing the menace of\nrural paganism within the borders of Christian America.\n\nThis is not the moment to settle the blame for this condition on any\npersons or sects. It is rather the time for a statesmanlike move to\nmeet the menace. Bible instruction of worth, dignity, intelligence,\nin every community, made accessible to the last child, is an aim\nwhich alone can meet the case. But this is an herculean stunt, and\nrequires some of the same sweep of co\u00f6perative, universal momentum as\ndrove out yellow fever, malaria, and is fighting pellagra, hook-worm,\nand tuberculosis. Bible illiteracy ranks as a problem with book\nilliteracy; and as great a unanimity is required to root it out as to\neradicate book illiteracy. A hundred different religious bodies in\nthe United States have striven more or less fitfully in the past with\nthis problem. But far more is needed than the hundred-headed effort.\nWhen, in the late war, the Allies came to their senses and found that\ntheir struggle was not a rope-pull nor a barbecue, but a life-or-death\nstruggle, they elected Foch to give universality of will to the cause\nof defense.\n\nThe children of rural America deserve by good rights a Foch to lead\nthe forces of Bible literacy against a creeping, godless paganism. I\nhave refrained from presenting the religious case for this crusade. The\nmenace is so great that the social appeal should be sufficient--and\nshould reach every intelligent lover of America, be he fundamentalist,\nmodernist, ethicist, or just plain man.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nWilliam James, the Harvard psychologist, used to say in his class-room:\n\u201cI must fight the devil and his wiles, for God needs me. I may help\nsave the day.\u201d\n\nIn the same room, the next hour, Josiah Royce, the philosopher, would\nsay, \u201cI must set my heel on Satan\u2019s neck, for God\u2019s victorious spirit\nis in me.\u201d\n\nWhichever of these two schools of moral action one belongs to, one is\nbound, you see, to fight the devil and his guile; and in country life\nthis is no joke, for as it turns out, the devil waved a mighty wicked\nwand over the American farm tenant when he jockeyed him on to the land\ninto the shoes of the departing farm owner. It was a devilish, cunning\ntrick to decoy the owner, body and soul, into town and into the town\nchurch--away from the little country church of his fathers. It was,\nhowever, the meanest lick of Satan against the peace of the tenant\nto bewitch him into flitting from farm to farm and from community\nto community. And now the situation has come to such a pass that,\nunless the American church has the grace and backbone and subtlety to\noutgeneral the devil in his game, the devil wins; for in matters of\nreligion, the landless man is between the devil and the deep sea.\n\n\n\u201c_Churches Detour--Tenants Ahead_\u201d\n\nIt is old stuff, in a way, this cheerless story of farm tenants\nand religion. Pick up, as I have done, either at random or quite\nmethodically, booklets, chapters, articles, or pamphlets dealing at\nfirst hand with the farm tenant, and the tale of his religious handicap\nruns drearily, hopelessly to the same sad end. For example, take\nthis rather mild statement from a member of Roosevelt\u2019s Country Life\nCommission:\n\n\u201cThe farm owner who has moved to town and is renting his land cannot\nbe expected to be a real, vital force in the rural church. Nor can\nthe tenant who has a one-year lease, or whose tenure is uncertain, be\nexpected to cultivate the Christian graces by intimate fellowship\nwith his neighbors and associates; in other words, to take root in the\ncommunity and become a part of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, then,\u201d it will be asked, \u201ctry to dress up the outworn subject\nagain?\u201d\n\nThe plain answer, without any apology, is simply this: The farm-tenant\ncase, as a phase of religion in eclipse, has not yet cast an image on\nthe American mind. The American church,--and I class together all the\nChristian bodies in this sweeping term,--the Christian conscience of\nthe American church has apparently reversed itself and \u201cpassed by on\nthe other side\u201d of this bedeviled situation. Now such an attitude, such\ncollective behavior, is ruthless, well nigh unforgivable, and in fact\nincomprehensible. Words must continue to be spoken until the church\nceases to detour around the tenant.\n\n\n_The Flood of Tenancy Unabated_\n\nAnd first of all, in order to see the gravity of the case as it stands,\none must sense the resistless character of the sweeping flow of tenancy\nitself. Decade by decade the flood has risen. In 1880, 25.6 per cent.\nof the farms in the United States were tenant farms; in 1890, 28.4 per\ncent.; in 1900, 35.3 per cent.; in 1910, 37.0 per cent.; in 1920, 38.1\nper cent.\n\nIf one looks a little closer at the regions where the flood is\nhighest--almost over the dikes, so to speak--the truth strikes home a\nlittle stronger. In the east South-central States, containing Kentucky,\nTennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, the percentage in 1880 was 35.2; in\n1890, 38.6; in 1900, 49.1; in 1910, 52.8; in 1920, 49.6. In the west\nsouth-central area, containing Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas,\nthe percentage in 1880 was 35.2; in 1890, 38.6; in 1900, 49.1; in 1910,\n52.8; in 1920, 53.2. In the west north-central area, containing, as a\nvery vital part of American agriculture, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri,\nNorth Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, the percentage in 1880\nwas 20.5; in 1890, 24.0; in 1900, 28.6; in 1910, 30.0; in 1920, 34.1.\n\nWhen the United States Census Report for 1920 came out and was scanned,\nit was discovered by every one that in the decade between 1910 and 1920\nthe flood of tenant farms had in number gone down in some States a\nlittle, as in Alabama and Mississippi, a fact which brought a decline\nin the east south-central area from 52.8 per cent. in 1910 to 49.6 per\ncent. in 1920. But lest the friends of agriculture in America should be\nput under ether by this disclosure, Dr. C. L. Stewart, now professor\nin the University of Illinois, while a member of the United States\nDepartment of Agriculture, in a statement entitled, \u201cThe Persistent\nIncrease of Tenant Farming,\u201d called attention to the fact that the\nbare number of tenant farms is a less accurate index of the sweep and\nmeaning of tenancy than the acreage involved and the value of that\nacreage:\n\n\u201cWhen measured on the basis of acreage and value, the number of rented\nacres per thousand and the number of dollar\u2019s worth of rented land per\nthousand was not only higher (in 1910 and 1920) than that shown on the\npreceding basis (number of rented farms), but has been growing at much\nfaster rates during both of the decades since 1900, especially during\nthe decade just ended.... In the light of this analysis, the tide of\ntenancy is shown by the latest census to have continued with little or\nno abatement.\u201d\n\nIn sober truth, this flood-tide of tenancy is no mere passing\nphenomenon in the adolescent experience of America, but is a settled\ncharacteristic now being wrought into the texture of American life.\nAs a social and economic force, tenancy is here to stay. Statesmen\nmay well build their dikes higher against it; but American religious\nleaders--the makers of ecclesiastical policy--must from now on\ngravely take farm tenancy into their reckoning, or assume spiritual\nresponsibility for its continued religionless character.\n\n\n_Locating the Devil\u2019s Quarry_\n\nLet us draw a bit closer to these tenant folks and look them in the\neyes. There they are, in round numbers two and a half millions of\ntenant operators; or, perhaps, better reckoned for our purpose as\ntwelve millions of people, counting all persons in the tenant families\nboth old and young. But, as almost everybody knows, there are a few\nvast differences among tenants, and we must sift a little and sort out\nthe group that the devil is laying his finger on and claiming as his\nown.\n\nA tenant who is a son or daughter of the landlord, or otherwise\nrelated to the landlord by blood or marriage, is without question\nnot only a privileged person and his family a privileged family\namong tenants, but, what is more to the point, living on family\nlands as he most generally does, the \u201crelated tenant\u201d is so often an\nowner in prospect with a deed \u201cin escrow\u201d as the law would put it,\nthat while nominally a tenant, he is an owner in thin disguise, and\nvirtually has in the community the status of an owner. The census does\nnot declare what percentage of the twelve millions of tenant folk\nbelongs to this favored class; but whatever the percentage is, it is\nobviously decreasing with the decreasing percentage of owner-operating\nfamilies. Representative studies made by the United States Department\nof Agriculture indicate that 23 per cent. of the tenant population\nbelongs at present to this group. If we accept this estimate, then, in\n1920, there were 2,760,000 persons in the families of \u201crelated tenants.\u201d\n\nTo protect my story against the will to exaggerate the landless\nelement, let us call the total number of \u201crelated tenants\u201d three\nmillions; and then let us deduct this whole group from the twelve\nmillions of tenant folks. This leaves nine millions of tenants\nunprivileged by birth or marriage in respect to land.\n\nLest any one should feel, furthermore, that I am trying to make, under\ncover, a case of the colored tenant,--whose situation is confessedly\nspecial and should not, for obvious reasons, be confused with that of\nwhite tenants,--let us sift and sort again and take out three and a\nhalf millions of colored tenant folk, old and young. The residuum is\nfive and a half millions of white tenants. This is the group that has\nswelled in numbers during the past four decades. This is the group\nthat is all the time spreading over more and more acres, all the time\ncreeping on to more and more valuable land. This group of landless\nmen, women, and children (I do not mean to say that this is the only\nlandless group of white farm people, for the agricultural-labor class\nmakes another story), occupying more and more the strategic positions\nin agriculture and country life, contains the devil\u2019s quarry.\n\n\n_Tenants On the Go_\n\nWe must add one more particularly distressing feature to our general\npicture. In December and January in the South, or in March in the\nNorth, there is a great stir among these tenants, for moving-time\nhas come. During the year between December 1, 1921, and December 1,\n1922, according to a statement put out by the U. S. Department of\nAgriculture, entitled, \u201cFarm Occupancy, Ownership, and Tenancy, 1922,\u201d\n\u201cnearly 663,000 shifts on farms exchanging tenants\u201d occurred of which\n\u201cnearly 250,000 tenants were indicated to have either discontinued\nfarming for some other occupation or moved out of their communities.\u201d\n\nIn this exodus, poverty tags along, poverty carrying in her apron\nall the witch\u2019s ills--hard luck, dimmed lights of the mind, illness,\ninferiority written in behavior, stolid despair, indifference to\nimprovement, insensibility to refinements. In the South, poverty hangs\non to the coat-tails of the \u201cCropper\u201d--him of the lowest estate of the\ntenant. In 1920, according to the United States Census Report, there\nwere 227,378 white croppers, more than one million white cropper folk.\n\nBehold a host, comparable with the host of Israel on the way to Canaan.\nThe roads are filled with teams, with jags of household belongings,\nwith led or driven cattle, horses and mules, with loads of women and\nchildren. A small nation is folding its tents and moving on ere its\ntents have fairly got pitched. White tenants alone,--and mind you, out\nof the group of five and a half millions of landless people,--an army\nof 1,375,000 souls; and of these, more than a half a million going\nacross the border of the community into a strange land for another\nshort sojourn. This is the picture you will see every year--over a\nquarter of all tenants moving, and ten per cent. of all tenants moving\ninto strange associations among strange people.\n\n\n_Outcasts From the Church_\n\nIn their recent study, \u201cThe Town and Country Church,\u201d Dr. H. N. Morse\nand Dr. de S. Brunner, of the Institute of Social and Religious\nResearch, have this convincing word to say about the church and the\nfarm tenant:\n\n\u201cThe church in the country areas is not, generally speaking, the church\nof the landless man. In a study of all the churches in 179 counties,\nlocated in 44 States, the situation, which we believe is reliably\nrepresentative of conditions in the United States as a whole, is\nthis: The percentage of farm owners who are members of churches in\nthe South is 59.5, while of tenants who are members the percentage is\n33.5; in the Southwest, of owners, 26.2, while of tenants, 9.2; in the\nNorthwest, of owners, 16.4, while of tenants, 7.4; in the Middle West,\nof owners, 47.9, while of tenants, 20.3; in the Prairie, of owners,\n55.6, while of tenants, 15.8.\u201d\n\nThese two authorities on the farmer\u2019s church, draw from their study of\nthe high and low tenancy areas in 175 counties this further conclusion:\n\u201cThe larger the proportion of farm tenants in an area, the more\nconspicuously unreached by the church is the landless man.\u201d Here are\ntheir figures, see for yourself:\n\n\u201cIn counties where tenancy runs from 0 to 10 per cent., the percentage\nof farm owners who are church members is 13.7, while the percentage\nof tenants who are church members is 12.4; where tenancy runs from 11\nto 25 per cent., the percentage of owners as church members is 26.8,\nwhile of tenants, 19.8; where tenancy runs from 26 to 50 per cent., the\npercentage of owners is 48.2, while of tenants, 23.6; where tenancy\nruns over 50 per cent., the percentage of owners who are church members\nis 63.6, while the percentage of tenants who are church members is\n23.9.\u201d\n\nWhen we look into this statement, it is plain that in the low tenancy\nareas the \u201crelated tenants\u201d on \u201cfamily lands\u201d bulk large, and they\nrank, as we know, with owners themselves; but when we get into the\nhigh tenancy areas, we strike the core of tenants unrelated to the\nlandlord. Here is the mass of our 5,500,000 landless tenant folk, and\nhere is where the church has weakened and fallen down. Five millions\nof these white landless tenants are in the high tenancy areas. And\napplying this church study to our problem, while the church reaches 55\nper cent. of the owners in these areas it reaches only 24 per cent.\nof the tenants. That is, 1,200,000 of these landless tenants only\nare inside the circle of direct religious influence, and 3,800,000\nare outside. If these 5,000,000 persons had been owners of land, or\ninheritors of land in waiting, the church would have reached 2,750,000\nof them instead of 1,200,000; in other words here are 1,550,000 tenant\npeople who are outcasts from the church simply because they are\nlandless folk. And these outcasts--these religionless pariahs--are on\nthe increase from year to year as tenancy increases its hold upon the\nnation.\n\n\n_One Hundred Per Cent. Material for Religion_\n\nIt surely will not be misunderstood if a layman should call to mind\nthat the genius of Christianity is its perennial Gospel--just good\nnews--to the poor, the broken in life\u2019s struggle. If a fitter multitude\nthan these tenants for the good tidings of the Christ can be found on\nthe face of the earth, I would like to learn of them. The ordinary life\nof these outcasts, these wanderers from spot to spot seeking the sun\nthat refuses to shine, has precisely all of those breakdowns which the\nChristian religion promises to repair--poverty, invalidism, death,\nsin. It seems to me that these pariahs are just naturally made to order\nfor the kind of religion that the American church has to offer; but as\nI see it, and I have looked this thing in the face from angle after\nangle, they haven\u2019t got a ghost of a show at it the way the church\nsystem of the country at present works out. Speaking straight from the\nshoulder, the devil wins, unless--And where is the person who will rise\nand name the great \u201cunless\u201d that can fix this church system up and set\nthe heel of the church on Satan\u2019s neck?\n\nThe history of the church, running back through the centuries, is,\nas I read it, dotted with awakenings, with the rise of a thought, of\na hope-dream, with the rise of a man who out of the very fog and\nblackness of popular waywardness, wantonness, unbelief, depravity, has\nstood up and successfully denied that human life must be all to the\nstrong and that the poor must live unillumined. This has been the type\nof man who has lit the torch of love and solicitude and faith in the\nworld that has lighted the race generation after generation. Is this\nnot the time in the life of the American church and this the occasion\nin America for such a man to arise and call a halt upon the detour of\nthe church around the farm tenant?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\n\u201cHireling!\u201d A sour epithet to hand a preacher; but the word is not\nmine. Look at it, if you will, in its original setting and judge for\nyourself:\n\n\u201cI am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the\nsheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own\nthe sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and\nfleeth.... The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth\nnot for the sheep.\u201d\n\nSo spake the Man of Sorrows, who, as he went about preaching the Gospel\nof the Kingdom, spake as never man spake. And nineteen centuries\nof unbroken Christian usage look down upon \u201cpastor and flock\u201d as an\nalmost perfect characterization of preacher and parish. Passing quickly\nthrough the gateway leading up to the porch of my tale, let me in a few\nwords taken from \u201cTown and Country Church in the United States,\u201d set\nbefore you the pastor-and-flock-hard-luck story in rural America:\n\n\u201cThe total number of communities within the town (town refers to places\nof 5,000 people or less) and country area is 73,230.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are 33,808 communities, or 42 per cent. of the total number,\nthat have churches, but do not have within them any resident pastors.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt would require 34,181 more ministers giving their full time to the\nwork of the ministry to provide one for each community, if they were\nevenly distributed.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe great advantage of the town over the village, and of both town\nand village over the country, in the matter of resident pastors, is\na characteristic of all regions and of virtually all counties. Thus,\nwhile 78 out of every 100 town churches have resident pastors, and 60\nout of every 100 village churches, only 17 out of every 100 country\nchurches have them, and less than 5 out of every 100 country churches\nhave full-time resident pastors.\u201d\n\nIn a nutshell, this is the inglorious fact: 30,000 flocks in rural\nAmerica have no shepherds. Thirty thousand rural flocks are open to\nthe wolf--because (for it so appears) American preachers care not for\ncountry sheep.\n\n\n_Sentenced to Purgatory_\n\nAn eminent rural-life leader a few weeks ago came back from a\ncountry-life conference of rural ministers, reporting that these\nministers had a saying among them, \u201cA country charge (pastorate) is a\nsentence to purgatory.\u201d\n\nThis report sounds like a piece of clerical humor; grim, maybe, but\nharmless and meaning nothing. Would to God this were true! Then perhaps\nthe picture of these 30,000 shepherdless flocks might turn out to\nbe only a nightmare. I tried to shake the thing out of my mind; but\nimmediately the long line of my ministerial acquaintances passed\nunwillingly before me; and I solemnly affirm that, with a few princely\nexceptions, these men after being plunged into their ministry, coming\nup for air, as it were, faced toward the city parish as flowers turn\ntoward the light; from the country, they struck out for the village;\nfrom the village, they struck out for the town; from the town, they\nstruck out for the city; from the city, they struck out for the\nmetropolis.\n\n\n_The Preacher\u2019s Flight_\n\nThe more I struggled to free myself from a conclusion on this matter,\nthe deeper into conviction I sank. I recalled, much against my\ninclination, a bad half-hour several years ago at the headquarters of\none of the great religious bodies of America. The occasion was the\nmeeting of the National Social Service Commission of that denomination.\nI had just finished reading a report, which expressed the idea that we\nmight look forward to the day when country parishes would be put up\nin packages containing people enough supporting one church, so that\nchurches in the country would be as powerful, ministers in the country\nwould be as influential, as city churches, on the one hand, and city\nministers on the other. A captain of city industry was a member of the\ncommission. During my paper, hands in pockets, he paced the floor up\nand down--somewhat to my discomfiture as I recall. When I concluded\nreading, he broke out with:\n\n\u201cBosh! All bosh! The country church will always be of little account.\nIt gets culls for ministers--it always has; it always will. Just as I\nleft the farm for the city to improve my lot, so every country minister\nwho can will leave the country parish for the city parish to improve\nhis lot.\u201d\n\nThat I suffered a shock as if by lightning may easily be imagined. The\nsteel-blue tone of this man did something to my heart; did something to\nmy faith in human nature hard to define. This captain of industry--and\nI suspect that this is what did the damage--never seemed to question\nthe legitimacy of the preacher\u2019s flight. Representing, as he did, the\nleading laymen of his denomination, quietly accepting the exodus of\ncountry preachers as perfectly normal--because running true to the\neconomics of good business instinct--he appalled me with his cynicism.\nAnd it took me many a month, I confess, to get back my belief in\nhumankind. But it came back, and came back strong in the following\nmanner:\n\n\n_Around the Glover\u2019s Cot_\n\nBy accident, one summer, I made a find; in one of the 30,000 pastorless\nparishes, a man lying prone on a cot; the cot standing on a stone-boat;\nthe stone-boat lying close to a deep pool in the bend of a little\nriver, in the shade of a great elm-tree; the man all alone, flat on his\nback, silently whipping the trout-pool with his fly. I came to believe\nin this helpless fisherman, and again all things good and beautiful\nseemed possible. I got the story from his sister, but can give only\nhints of it here.\n\nAs a boy on the farm he had made up his mind to get an education. At\nsixteen he was looking forward impatiently to beginning his courses\nof study, when one day in the woods a tree which the men folks were\ncutting down fell on him and broke his back. He never walked again,\nnor, in fact, ever again sat up. Doomed to lie on his back, all his\nhopes blighted, he asked for something to do with his hands. They gave\nhim needle and thread, shears and a piece of buckskin. He made a pair\nof clumsy buckskin gloves. He made a less clumsy pair. He made pair\nafter pair, better and still better. Then dozens of pairs, until his\nskill built up a small business. But his ambition mounted with success,\nand he asked whether he couldn\u2019t study something.\n\n\u201cCan\u2019t I study law?\u201d he pleaded.\n\nThey got him law-books. He read law, he made buckskin gloves; he\nmade gloves, he read law. He was admitted to the bar. He became\njustice-of-the-peace in his backwoods settlement. Men got to coming\nfor miles to the glover\u2019s cot to tell their troubles and look into his\ndeep eyes, hear his counsel, and feel his glad hand. He was a real\npeacemaker under the guise of a lawyer. His ethics backed up to and\nrested upon the Sermon on the Mount. He bought land, hired it tilled,\nbuilt himself a better house, and settled into the character of a\ncountry squire. He was of the little church flock, and the rest of the\nflock came to set great store by his good sense, his wholesome cheer,\nindomitable activity, and, withal, his straight reliance on God. In\nfact, the helpless glover\u2019s dwelling was the meeting-place for the\nflock about as often as the church building; for everybody said, \u201cWe\nget new strength to keep a-going when we meet around the cot.\u201d\n\n\n_The Modern Wolf a Playful Cub?_\n\nSee how I got back my faith? The prone fisherman on his stone-boat was\na godsend to me. I saw that personal life is so rich that no one can\nbe broken in body to the point where, in case he \u201clayeth down his life\nfor the sheep,\u201d he will be making a mean gift. I half suspect that God\nraises up out of the ground, as it were, in many of these pastorless\ncommunities a proxy for the parson that, beholding the wolf, leaveth\nthe sheep and fleeth to the city--a proxy, like the glover-lawyer, who\nis no quitter. And in some parishes where the preacher still sticks\n(his face set, however, toward the city) I fancy a man or a woman or a\nchild can be found who is na\u00efvely scaring off the wolf.\n\nNorris Shepardson was such a man. Farmer, poet, refined spirit, he\nwent about his work making everybody believe that a new day is fresh\nfrom God. Ambrose Brimmer, a member of the community, didn\u2019t happen\nto be much of a churchman, and his Sunday haymaking teased the parson\nmightily. I remember well one perfect trout day, when Ambrose was\nshowing me the holes in a stream strange to my rod, that we got to\ntalking about preachers.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t care a damn if the parson does see me haying on Sunday,\u201d said\nAmbrose; \u201cbut if I get a sight of Norris Shepardson driving up the\nroad, I skedaddle and hide, you bet! You know Norris Shepardson. Well,\nNorris Shepardson is a Christian and no quack.\u201d\n\nAnd Ambrose was right. Norris Shepardson was a Christian from his\neyelashes to his finger-tips; and his sweet belief in you put you\nstraightway under obligation to goodness when he cast a glance your way.\n\nIt is probably true that I have been something of a modern-life fan.\nBut when I try to think of the Master\u2019s parables of the shepherd, the\nsheep, and the wolf, and of the one sheep that was lost while the\nninety and nine were safe in the fold, I confess that I am troubled\nabout my modern-life philosophy.\n\nAre modern sheep any the less in need of a downright shepherd because\nthey are modern?\n\nIsn\u2019t there a wolf any longer in times that are modern? Or may he\nperhaps be just a playful cub? Or possibly, by this time, a toothless,\nplain, doddering beastling?\n\nHas the age of lofty heroism in religion--the age of sheer contempt\nof some of the traditional goods of life--clean passed away? And does\neconomics furnish the better clue in modern days to those who are\ncalled of God to preach?\n\nDo we need any 30,000 more preachers in the country trenches? Do we\nneed any shock troops at all? Isn\u2019t it perfectly orthodox pacifism in\nthese days for all the picked soldiers in the war on the devil to fall\nback into comfortable winter quarters?\n\n\n_Side-stepping the Law of Hire_\n\nI try to find my answer to these troubling queries in a glance down\nthe centuries. There are the barefoot Black Friars of Dominic and the\nGray Friars of Francis of Assisi (him who took poverty for his bride)\nin the thirteenth century. They gloried in mean clothes, mean shelter,\nmean food, as they ministered out of their own poverty to the poor,\nthe overlooked, the no-accounts (in cities, then, because the troop of\ncomfortable parsons were fattening in the popular country districts).\n\nThere are the visionaries and enthusiasts: John Bunyan in the\nseventeenth century; John and Charles Wesley in the eighteenth. In the\nvery face of the plentiful, complacent clergy, they fought the wolf as\nif they had been apostles living in the first century.\n\nThere is Jean Frederick Oberlin, in the early part of the nineteenth\ncentury, who protested, \u201cI do not wish to labor in some comfortable\npastoral charge where I can be at ease. I want a work to do which no\none else wishes to do, and which will not be done unless I do it.\u201d\n\nOberlin had just won his degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the\nUniversity of Strasburg, at a time when Strasburg was a city of France.\nHis \u201ccall\u201d to pastoral duty came all of a sudden with the wind of a\nFebruary evening rushing in at the door as a stranger stepped into\nthe bare room. Struck with the poverty of the place, Pastor Stuber\nintroduced himself. Beard\u2019s translation from the French presents us\nwith the picture:\n\n\u201cI have learned about you, Herr Oberlin. Your name has been mentioned\nto me as one who does not follow the beaten paths of ministerial\ncandidates. You have studied surgery and medicine. You have a knowledge\nof botany and herbs. Is this not so?\u201d\n\n\u201cIn my leisure hours I have paid some attention to botany, to\nblood-letting, and the experiences of the anatomical room,\u201d replied\nOberlin.\n\n\u201cWill you be kind enough to explain to me what this little pan means\nthat I see here by your lamp?\u201d asked Stuber.\n\nA deep blush ran over Oberlin\u2019s face. \u201cPardon the cooking, Herr Pastor.\nI take my dinner with my parents, and I bring away some bread which my\nmother gives me. At eight o\u2019clock I put this little pan over my lamp,\nplace my bread in it, with a little water and salt. Then I go on with\nmy studies.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are my man!\u201d exclaimed Stuber, rising from his chair. \u201cYou live on\nthe diet of Laced\u00e6mon. Yes, you are my man. I see you do not understand\nme; but I have got my man, and I shall not let you go. I want you for\nthe pastorship of Waldbach in the Ban-de-la-Roche. There a hundred\npoor and wretched families in want of the bread of life; four or five\nhundred to shepherd and to save, poor, wretched, friendless.\u201d\n\nOberlin\u2019s heart was in a tumult. This was just the field of labor he\nhad wished. But what of the difficulties?\n\n\u201cThe parish must be in a very cold region,\u201d suggested Oberlin.\n\n\u201cMy dear Oberlin, I do not wish to exaggerate anything. Six months of\nwinter; at times the cold of the Baltic; sometimes a wind like ice\ncomes down from the mountain-tops above; the sick and dying are to be\nvisited in remote, wild, solitary places in the forests.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the parishioners, are they well disposed?\u201d inquired Oberlin.\n\n\u201cNot too much so, not too much. They are frightfully ignorant and\nuntractable, and proud of their ignorance. It is an iron-headed people,\na population of Cyclops.\u201d\n\nOberlin was taking in the situation. He slowly lifted his large blue\neyes and asked: \u201cYou say most of the parishioners are extremely poor?\nAre there resources to aid the poor?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe parishioners have nothing. Four districts even poorer than the\nmother parish are to be served. Not a single practicable road. Deep\nmud-holes among the cabins. The people, abandoned to indifference, have\nnot the least concern to meliorate their condition.\u201d\n\n\u201cEvery one of your words has knocked at the door of my heart like the\nblows of a hammer,\u201d said Oberlin. And it was settled that Oberlin would\ngo to the mountains; and on March 30, 1767, in his twenty-seventh year,\nOberlin arrived at Waldbach.\n\nNo single piece of literature equals the story of Jean Frederick\nOberlin\u2019s pastorate in the Ban-de-la-Roche as an interpretation of\na country minister\u2019s social, economic, and religious relation to\nhis parish. Overture after overture came to him during the years to\ngive up his laborious cares in the hills and take charge of a church\nwhere cultured life would bring with it superior advantages, greater\nrecognized honor, and a satisfactory salary. His answer was the same to\nall:\n\n\u201cNo, I will never leave this flock. God has confided this flock to me.\nWhy should I abandon it?\u201d\n\nAnd in that out-of-the-way parish he played the shepherd and the man\nfor nigh on to sixty years. Like the Venerable Bede in the eighth\ncentury, he died with the shepherd\u2019s crook in his hand.\n\n\n_Preachers\u2019 Alibis Pass Inspection_\n\nNow tell me, was Oberlin--remember he is only a hundred years\naway from our time--temperamental and absurdly heroic? Was the\nnineteenth-century wolf any less tender with the nineteenth-century\nflock than the first-century wolf with the first-century flock? Is\nthe modern \u201cworld-the-flesh-and-the-devil\u201d just a bugaboo to frighten\nchildren? Is modern sin a whiter stain on the soul and more easily\nwashed out than in any previous century? It would take a braver man\nthan I am to champion modern life to such lengths.\n\nThese 30,000 runaway American preachers,--they all have good reasons\nfor running. As alibis go, they are perfect--humanly speaking. I have\noften heard the recital: \u201cEasier life for the wife,\u201d \u201ceducation for\nthe children,\u201d \u201can American standard of living,\u201d \u201ccongenial parish,\u201d\n\u201cbooks,\u201d \u201ctravel,\u201d \u201cart,\u201d \u201cgreater opportunity for service.\u201d\n\nJust such reasons as bankers, clerks, teachers, merchants give for\ntheir economic movements--to better themselves, following the law of\nhire. And nobody protests; for nobody is in a position to protest, as\nthe law of hire seems to regulate the life of all. The protest--the\nonly great protest--comes everlastingly up from the first century:\n\n\u201cA certain scribe came, and said unto Him, Master, I will follow Thee\nwhithersoever Thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have\nholes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not\nwhere to lay his head.\u201d\n\n\n_The Plight of Him Who Stays_\n\nThe preacher that sticks by the farm community takes pot-luck with the\nfarmer himself; and the socio-economic plight of the farmer has had\nfront-page head-lines since the time of President Theodore Roosevelt.\nTo-day, in the time of President Calvin Coolidge, those head-lines have\nbecome bigger and blacker. The farmer\u2019s dollar, meanwhile, has become\nsmall and weak. His taxes have risen overnight like a spring freshet.\nHis debts stare him in the face. His children are forsaking him for the\nhigh wages and high life of the city. He cannot pay the wages of labor\nin competition with automobile factories.\n\nThe farmer\u2019s social system in America has broken down under the strain\nof new forces. He needs the social help of men and women who will\nshare his life, his privations, his hopes and fears. But they are to\nbe men and women who see the farmer\u2019s plight and, giving themselves\nto the task, struggle to organize a modern rural social system. It is\nfruitless here to recite the tale of an underpaid country clergy, with\nits sequel of a socially visionless, untrained set of honest parsons;\nfruitless to point out how denominational strife has cut down the\npreacher\u2019s salary to less than a living wage. True, the country parson\nhas his poverty, and needs not to take any extra \u201cvow of poverty.\u201d This\nsort of thing will go on and on until there is a right-about on the\npart of those preachers who flee the country as if it were the plague.\nStrong men of social vision, men who have come to understand the\nfarmer\u2019s social and economic plight, must turn their back on the city,\nand take up labors for the country flock.\n\n\n_A New Type of Training School_\n\nBut will there ever be such a right-about-face of virile, holy men\nuntil we have in America a new type of theological seminary for the\ntraining of country-bound ministers of Christ? I doubt it. The present\nschools of training are city-set, city-wise, city-satisfied; not but\nthat a score or more of them give some \u201crural courses\u201d; not but that a\ntrickle of men has started already from them toward the country. You\ncan better understand the case if I were to ask what hope there would\nhave been for agricultural science, if total reliance had been placed\nupon the great city universities, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago,\nPennsylvania, to develop the practice of farming. Each of these\nuniversities has already made some notable contribution to agriculture\nin one form or another; but the great hope of agriculture lay in a\nfarming college, and fortunately, the common sense of this country\nperceived this truth.\n\nIn like manner, the hope of the rural ministry, in my estimation,\nlies in a rural theological seminary under the eaves of one of our\ngreat colleges of agriculture--preferably a college of agriculture\nin close proximity to a great state university. Here is the farmer\u2019s\nintellectual center. Here are gathered men and women of hope for farm\nlife. Here are the men and women who have social vision for rural\nsociety. In touch with these men and women, under the spell of the\nintelligent hope for the American farm and farmer, a school of religion\ncan grow up which will train men to go into the country and help redeem\nit from its present social chaos. They can carve out community churches\nof distinction. They can create a line of such churches, wholly in\nrural territory, which will furnish steps of promotion for the most\nstrenuous and ambitious pastors. Flight is not the cure of the plight\nof country parsons. The cure is rather intelligent consecration to the\ncountry flocks.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d went on the author of Christian idealism,--mind you, in the same\nbreath in which He had paid to His followers the superb compliment, \u201cYe\nare the salt of the earth,\u201d--\u201cif the salt have lost its savor--\u201d\n\nAnd the story of Protestant home missions in rural America during the\nlast two or three decades has in it the taste of this \u201clost savor.\u201d\n\nLet me lay bare before you,--with the shame of a churchman very much\nembarrassed, it must be confessed,--not so much the facts of this\nunsavory home-mission story, for the facts have been public property\nfor some years, as an interpretation of the facts and an appraisal of\nthe damage done to American churchdom.\n\nFor the benefit of him who does not understand the situation at all,\na word is necessary. Here is the picture, and here are the essential\nfeatures in the picture, whatever variations there may be in minor\ndetails.\n\n\n_Twice Too Many Churches_\n\nA community of rural folk of a definite population is spread out before\nyou. Christian churches, usually from two to ten in number, are alive,\nif not all going concerns in the community. Whatever differences there\nmay be in the membership rolls--and of course we shall expect many\npoints of difference here--or in the number of services per week or per\nmonth, or in the presence or absence of resident pastors, or in the\norganization of the churches into Sunday-schools, mission societies,\nclubs, social committees and the like--whatever the variations may be,\nI say, the number of persons in the community, counting every single\nsoul, is far short of enough to man all of the churches, use any\nreputable standard of church organization you please to measure by.\n\nFurthermore, in the type community in question, some or all of the\nchurches are weak and ineffective, if not virtually down and out.\nMoreover,--and this is the central feature of the picture,--one church\nis, or several or all of these churches are, receiving subsidies\nin the form of money from the home-mission funds of the respective\ndenominational state body or national body or both, the sum of money\nbeing just enough to keep the particular church competitively in the\nrunning in that community.\n\nThe essential fact in this situation may be stated thus: In a community\nwhere there is known to be a mass of persons (in commercial parlance,\n\u201cvolume of business\u201d) sufficient to build and maintain only from\none to five churches, there are actually found to be from two to\nten; and the excess of churches over and above the number which the\nvolume of business justifies is the direct result of the injection of\nhome-mission money into the community.\n\n\n_Veiled Hate_\n\nIt does not require a clever mind to know what will happen. When from\ntwo to ten kernels of corn are planted in a piece of soil which has\nnutritive elements sufficient to bring only from one to five stalks\nto maturity, we know that a struggle for life is on which may doom\none stalk, several stalks, or even all stalks. It is so with the\ncompetitive churches; but the corn simile fails to illustrate the case\nat the really tragic point. The subsidized churches, which make up the\nredundance, create in the community what is known by everybody there\nto be a case of veiled malignancy. Self-respecting persons either hold\nthemselves aloof from formal religion there, or, conscience-stricken,\nstand helplessly bewildered, or in plain disgust they pick up and\nleave. And the community turns sour. The salt has lost its savor.\n\nIf you would sense the disaster of this competition, please read\nbetween the lines of the following resolution, passed within the last\nyear, by a minister\u2019s association in a small rural community where six\nProtestant churches are breathing the air that is hardly enough for\nthree!\n\n \u201cWhereas we are joined together as Christian ministers in the\n association of brotherly fellowship and helpful co-working, we hereby\n agree that the following principles shall guide and control us\n individually, and, so far as our proper influence can go, our several\n congregations in our mutual relationships....\n\n I. That we decline and discourage proselytizing in any form.\n\n II. While we recognize that every man is free to worship where and\n as he wills, yet we realize that shifting from one denomination to\n another save from absolute religious conviction is not edifying, but\n harmful. Wherefore, we will not encourage those who from pique or\n temporary dissatisfaction with ministers or people of their own local\n congregations wish to unite with ours.\n\n III. That we will not, save in exceptional cases, receive into our\n Sunday-schools as regular members thereof, children of families who\n are affiliated with other congregations of the town.\n\n IV. That whenever we come across new-comers to the town who are\n affiliated with, or declare preference for, some Christian body other\n than our own we will not (if the church of their choice be represented\n by a congregation here) ask them to unite with our congregation or\n send their children to our Sunday-school until we have given to the\n minister or church officials of the church of their preference the\n name and address of such persons, and allowed reasonable opportunity\n for them to claim their own.\u201d\n\nIt is clear on the face of it that the recognized principles of\nChristianity have failed to keep these churches sweet to one another;\nand resort is, therefore, had to a contract--a perfectly human document\nof agreement, such as governs sinners in mundane business--in hope that\nan-out-and-out bargain may accomplish what Christian love can not.\n\nThese ministers agree _not_ to proselytize, _not_ to encourage\nlifting members from another church, _not_ to receive children into\nthe Sunday-school from families of another flock, _not_ to pick up\nnew-comers without advertising them and waiting a reasonable length\nof time for a claimant. This document of \u201cnots\u201d--of things not to\nbe done--na\u00efvely uncovers the teasing things that were done behind\ncurtains.\n\n\n_Dispensing With Mission Aid_\n\nBefore reading further, you will wish to know whether there is much of\nthis sort of thing going on in rural America; whether, in fact, it is\nnot fussing over trifles to beckon anybody to look at this thing.\n\nThe best authorities, after a long study on this subject, are quoted as\nestimating that the amount of Protestant home-mission money annually\nwasted in competitive religion in rural communities is at present\n$3,000,000; and if we may generalize from twenty-five thoroughly\nstudied counties, widely separated, where there are 211 churches aided\nby home-mission money, of which 149 are disastrously competitive, \u201cmost\nof the home-mission aid which is now granted could be withdrawn without\nany danger whatsoever of leaving communities (rural) with inadequate\nfacilities.\u201d\n\nThe official report goes on to say, \u201cAside from any possible loss in\ndenominational prestige, which a purely objective study such as this\ncan not undertake to measure, on a careful examination of all the data\nat hand, it seems that 149 of the 211 aided churches in these counties\nmight be dispensed with, to the general advantage of the religious life\nin their communities and to the greater glory of the Kingdom of God.\u201d\n\nThis thing, look at it from any angle you please, is as rust on the\nwheat, a rot in the potato, a blight on the peach-tree, a boll-weevil\nin the cotton. God knows that the farmer already carries along enough\nof a handicap in community matters without being afflicted with this\ncanker on his religion, as a discipline. It certainly looks like\njumping on the man that\u2019s down. But this sin against the farmer is not\nthe worst of the wicked business.\n\n\n_Worse Than Wasted_\n\nWhat hurts most in this paradoxical practice is the prostitution of the\nmost beautiful gift in all religion.\n\n\u201cMissions!\u201d\n\nThe very word conjures up angels of mercy. It brings to mind the last\nwords of Christ to his disciples and to his followers of all time. And\nthis mission money (it is not so pathetic that it sometimes is the\nwidow\u2019s mite or that it is sometimes earned in feebleness with many a\npain) is the purest money handled by men. It is the visible sign of\ntears of longing for love to govern men. Missions are the church\u2019s\ngreat romance. When out of the barrenness and weakness of my little\nlife, I put into the hands of the church a gift for the whomsoever,\nin faith, I do it with a prayer that it will help bring peace to some\nsoul, harmony to some family, blessing to some community which is\nbeyond my power otherwise to help.\n\nTo think, then, that the tip of your prayer and mine, the sweetest\nthing we can give, is poisoned, and shot into a rural community,\nthere to hurt--Well the words are not so much wanting to express\nmy indignation and yours, as the mind fails to comprehend how such\ntactless blunders can happen.\n\n\u201cWhy do these church bodies do this wicked thing?\u201d you enquire.\n\nLet the words of a high church official I once knew convey to you not\nso much the real reason, as the state of mind out of which the thing\ngrows!\n\n\u201cSo long as there is a family of our faith in that village, that family\nshall have the sacraments of our faith ministered to it.\u201d\n\nHe might just as well have added, \u201ceven though the heavens fall\u201d; for\nwhat he did was to force a subsidy into a community to help a small\nfaction of his particular church to survive when the majority of the\npeople, even the majority of his own little church organization, had\nvoted voluntarily to cut down the number of churches and eliminate the\nunnecessary one. The high church official just ripped open a community\nsore, when it had begun to heal. He poured gall in again after somebody\nhad sweetened community life for a moment.\n\n\n_A New Religious Ethics Between Churches_\n\nThe egotism of a particular church group; the flaunting individualism\nof a particular denominational combination of persons, whose personal\negos are, religiously, to be subjected, but whose combined ego is to be\nexalted! Here is an uncharted sea of ethics and religion between church\ngroups. Shall it not be discussed? Especially when it grinds the rural\ncommunity to powder? Shall it be good Christianity for one Christian\nsect to crowd and shove just like a bully in a mob?\n\nThe day and generation is getting suspicious of pietists of all sorts\nwho can tell sinners how to behave individually to one another; yes,\nwho can even tell the labor group how to behave to the employer group\nand the employer group to the labor group, but who have no conception\nof what Christian principles apply as between one church group and\nanother church group in the realm of religion, except to beat the other\nchurch group at all costs. If I were not heart and soul captured by the\ncharacter, life, philosophy, and guidance of Jesus himself, if I were\nnot thrilled by his words, and electrified by his life and death, more\nand more the older I grow, I should be tempted to see in this cutthroat\ngroup egotism of competitive Christian church groups a decline of\nChristianity itself.\n\n\u201cThey all do it\u201d is a lame excuse for sinners; but for a church body,\nit is tragic. Think of a million people, more or less, possessing one\nshibboleth, trying to embody earnestly the Christ, while deliberately\nhamstringing another Christian church body which is doing the same\nthing!\n\nBut who is to blame? Whose sin is this prostitution of a holy thing?\n\nDid you ever happen to know the officials at the head of a Protestant\nchurch body, either national or state? Did you ever know the persons\nwho distribute home-mission money after it is once collected? Did\nyou ever get a glimpse of the inside? Well, if so, then you know\nhow intensely human this situation is. You know how complex are the\nforces that operate, how like politics are the powers behind the locked\ndoors. You know then that when you try to track this sinner, you can\u2019t\nfind him. Nobody does the thing. Nobody does anything. Nobody is to\nblame. The Christian leaders are not leading on such matters. They are\nfighting the individual sins of the people.\n\nWhat would America think of a great Christian leader who should come\nout and insist that Christian churches ought to love, respect, defer to\nother Christian churches? What a stir in Christendom it would make for\na great man carrying his own church with him, let us say, to go up and\ndown the land preaching that membership in one Christian church should\nthereby make us members in all Christian churches; preaching that we\nshould discount all the differences among Christian churches and love\nall Christian churches for their likenesses?\n\nLook at this straw:\n\nIn Canada an outstanding movement is nearing completion to unite\norganically three great Protestant bodies, affecting more than three\nquarters of a million of church members. The daily press recently in\nexplanation of the union, carried this item:\n\n\u201cThe Union had its origin in the conviction that many separate\nchurches of each denomination, especially in the rural districts, were\nhandicapped in limited membership and were unable to maintain properly\nseparate buildings and ministers. It is therefore a part of a tendency\nin many other countries to submerge religious differences in an effort\nat wider and more effective service.\u201d\n\nThis looks on the horizon like the peep of dawn of a new Christian\nday--and what a dawn for the rural community that would be!\n\nBut--lest we be too sanguine--that dawn has some climb to make yet.\nHas not the Home Mission Council of the Federal Council of Churches\nin America put into practice on the Western frontier for several\nyears principles of denominational courtesy? Have not the phrases of\ntheir documents on \u201cOverchurching,\u201d \u201cUnderchurching,\u201d and \u201cWasteful\nCompetition\u201d seeped very generally throughout the settled portions\nof the United States, as well as into the frontier? Have not the\nForeign Mission Boards of the various denominations for years gained\nconspicuously the confidence of their laymen by the intelligent\ndistribution of territory among the missions of different church bodies\nabroad? The fact is and must be reckoned with that all the words\nand phrases and ideas and logic on this subject, pro and con, have\nbeen bandied about until they are almost threadbare. The will to do,\nhowever, is still very stubborn in old, established communities.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\n\u201cWhat is the difference between a state university and an ordinary\nuniversity?\u201d\n\nA rather silly question, perhaps; but the answer that came back,\nlightning-like, gave me the jolt of my life, and incidentally picked\nout in my mind the pattern for the community church. Here is the\noccasion and what took place:\n\nA reception for the distinguished regents of the University of\nWisconsin at the home of the president. In due time I found myself\napproaching that awful reception line, terrifying, indeed, to me, a\nnew-comer. Suddenly I became aware that I was shaking hands with the\npresident, whose newness to the job of presiding over a university had\nnot entirely worn off.\n\nIt was up to me to say something, and so, after the manner of a\npedagogue, I blurted out a question:\n\n\u201cMr. President, will you tell me the difference between a state\nuniversity and an ordinary university?\u201d\n\nPresident Van Hise didn\u2019t hesitate an instant with his answer.\n\n\u201cI cannot speak for all state universities,\u201d said he, \u201cbut this\nuniversity is run not for the students who happen to be here, but for\nthe persons who may never see the university--even to the last man,\nwoman, and child in the last community of the State.\u201d\n\nI had become unconscious of the reception line, for I was startled\nwith an idea foreign to my bringing up, and I must make sure that I\nperfectly understood.\n\n\u201cMr. President,\u201d I interrupted, \u201cdo you mean to say that the\nUniversity of Wisconsin is not proud of turning out highly developed\npersonalities?\u201d\n\n\u201cOnly as carriers,\u201d President Van Hise quickly replied, in his\ncharacteristic jerky manner; \u201ccarriers of ideas and attitudes even to\nthe isolated community and to the unpromising man. The students who are\nhere are here, as it were, by accident. But the university is run for\nWisconsin\u2019s people at work.\u201d\n\nI passed on down the line, and eventually out into a world strange to\nme, where being a \u201ccarrier\u201d of intellectual goods to the \u201cisolated\ncommunity\u201d and to the \u201clast man\u201d was an academic commonplace.\n\nFourteen years of that day-by-day commonplace, however, never rubbed\noff the beauty of its bloom for me; for here was a university running\nat least neck and neck with church Christians in love for,--or duty\nto, if you prefer it so,--the Gospel\u2019s whomsoever.\n\nHaving seen with my own eyes these last communities of a State\nquickened into intellectual fervor through the devotion of university\nmen and women, do you think I do not know what would happen to the\nspiritual life of these out-of-the-way communities if the supreme love\nof devoted church men and women were brought to bear upon them?\n\n\n_A Forecast Founded on Fact_\n\nI will venture to forecast some of the things that would happen.\nEvery rural community would have a community church--a church for the\nwhomsoever, even to the last man, woman, and child in that community.\nIf topographically possible, every such church community would stretch\nthe bounds of its parish to include a thousand souls all told. In\ncommunities of two thousand souls, there would be two churches--two\nonly, and both community churches. In communities of three thousand\nsouls, there would be three community churches, and three churches\nonly, every church, a community church; and no more churches than one\nto one thousand of the community population; for it takes one thousand\nof the population to maintain an effectual modern church; and every\nchurch is to be a Christian community church as a safeguard against\npaganism. But why am I so foolish as to foretell what would happen when\nI can tell what is happening?\n\nThere are to-day, we are told by those who keep informed on the\nmatter, a thousand community churches in the United States, of which\nthe greater part are in rural territory. In fact, it is reported that\nnew community churches are being organized at the rate, at present,\nof six a month. To say that there is a community church movement\nwell-started is no exaggeration. Some States such as Massachusetts,\nVermont, Connecticut, Ohio, California, Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, are\noutstanding in the movement.\n\nOf course, the community church is not yet standardized, but it is\nshaping up. To affirm that there are three types, as some say, or five,\nas others put it, is more or less arbitrary. Still, for the sake of\nthe man who understands better by types, I may say that some community\nchurches like to be known as having arrived at the community ideal by\n\u201cfederation\u201d of two or more denominational churches, the new church\npreserving connection with a national church body.\n\nOther community churches pride themselves on being \u201cunion\u201d churches,\neach having originated from the organic union of two or more churches,\nor having been established as a \u201cunion\u201d church in a community\npossessing no church, but containing families of various denominational\nconnections in the past. The union church once formed usually stands\nalone, without any denominational affiliation.\n\nThen there is the regular \u201cdenominational\u201d church, which either\njust happens to be or has come purposely to be the only church in\nthe community; and which makes the boast of existing for the whole\ncommunity rather than for its particular denominational group.\n\nAnd there are other varieties, which could indeed be dignified into\ntypes, if we were pushed to it. The important thing, however, is that\nout of a general unrest and dissatisfaction with churches that aim\nto keep breeding up within themselves a highly pedigreed group of\npersonalities which possess decidedly exclusive, if not aristocratic,\ncharacteristics, have arisen overnight, as it were, churches which\nadmit to the inner circle all the pedigrees and aim at the democratic\nideal of acting in the realm of religion for the last man, woman, and\nchild in the community.\n\n\n_Churches for the Whomsoever_\n\nHere we have before our very eyes, then, a kind of a church which is\nrun, as President Van Hise said his university was run, not for a\nselect few within its walls, but for the whomsoever within its own\nterritory; a church that views every single member as a \u201ccarrier\u201d of\nthe goods of life to the last man, rather than as a precious mechanism\nin which should be lodged all the mysteries of a peculiar cult.\n\nLook over some of the stories of these churches which are confessedly\ntrying to find their way to a new expression of social religion\ndesigned to prevent the wastes of competitive Christianity.\n\nHere are the high points in an Idaho community church: Rural, in a town\nof 600 souls. Presbyterian by connection, but with members formerly\nof sixteen different denominations. Membership, 400. Plant worth\n$50,000, with eighteen separate class-rooms for Sunday-school use.\nA community house, with gymnasium. Rest room for women and girls. A\nweek-day church school using one hour a week of school time. In summer,\na daily vacation Bible school. A Boy Scout troop. A Campfire Girls\u2019\norganization. Potato growers and fruit men freely using the community\nhall. High moral standards reflecting the unity of the people.\n\nTake another community church of farmers in Iowa, in the open\ncountry: An architecturally commanding building, providing, like\na well-organized school-house, many separate rooms for religious\ninstruction. The church has deliberately packed into its conception\nof \u201ccommunity church\u201d the idea that, assuming Christianity to have\ncontact with every phase of living, the church has responsibility\nfor providing the auspices under which all social activities of the\ncommunity take place. What more natural, then, than that the Fourth\nof July celebration should be around the most beautiful spot in the\ncommunity, the church? Farmers\u2019 Institute in the church? Young people\nhaving a place for good times at the church? A church committee looking\nafter the matter of bringing good families on to farms that are for\nsale or rent in the community?\n\nTake a certain community church in Indiana. Here is the story of an\nhonest struggle on the part of four church pedigrees to burn their\nbridges behind them, and, pooling their resources, to start in anew.\nThe peculiar traditions of each cult, however, cling desperately to\neach group, until, after trying in vain to carry these psychological\ncontradictions along in an artificial unity, in a moment of supreme\ndevotion to the good of their community, they strip off their\ntrade-marks, forget their shibboleths, and step forward into religious\nfreedom.\n\nThe community-church movement is not going to create, I surmise, new\nsects, leaving a residuum of several more denominations. Rather it\nis a real step towards the organic union of kindred church bodies on\nthe one hand, and so a reduction of sects; and on the other hand, a\nstep towards democratizing every church and making it a real community\nchurch.\n\n\n_The Rural Dilemma and the Way Out_\n\nIt will require only another thousand of these brave, venturesome\ncommunity churches to turn every select-bodied denomination to looking\nitself over. This self-criticism will lead the great Protestant church\nbodies, let us hope, to a church conscience in regard to destructive\nchurch competition. Then it will be an easy step to coming to terms\nwith one another in any locality, so as to give the community a chance\nto have a community church.\n\nThe community church, if we can have any faith in mankind, is sure\nto come along strong. If high officials become obstructionists, they\nwill be swept away; for the people, when they once clearly see, will\nhave their way in churches and religion as in the long run they do in\ngovernment and politics.\n\nThe sooner the great Protestant bodies confess their sins of\ncompetition and put their houses in order, the sooner the new day will\ncome for the remote community and the last man.\n\nSome of us know what it is to be a devotee of a great church sect. The\nabsolute rightness of our cult has been no more questionable than our\nown existence. When our sect was in parallel columns with any other\nreligious sect, we did not, could not yield right of way.\n\nBut when we are all consciously confronted with the problem of\nworking out the religious life of 30,000,000 of isolated farm people,\nwe wake up to the fact that we occupy a position where cult pride,\ncult individualism, and cult exclusiveness break down. Then we find\nourselves in a dilemma; we must leave the farmers to rot, a thing which\nis unquestionably abhorrent to our cult; or we must modify our cult, a\nthing which on the surface seems a sacrilege to do.\n\nBut there is a way out of every dilemma; generally, however at the cost\nof a bit of human pride. The community church shows the various noble\nchurch cults one way out of the rural church dilemma.\n\nRead these bold words from a group of fifty young Methodist rural\nworkers penned to bishops:\n\n\u201cTo the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church: We the undersigned\nmembers of the Methodist Episcopal Church appeal to you to give\nprayerful consideration to the following suggestions:\n\n1. That the bishops, district superintendents, and other administrative\nofficers of our denomination cordially co\u00f6perate with the leaders\nof other denominations in an effort to so organize rural church\ngeographical units that not more than one Protestant church to every\none thousand population shall prevail as a standard.\n\n2. That service to the community rather than to the denomination be the\nbasis on which ministers shall be trained, appointed, and promoted.\n\n3. That the Methodist Episcopal Church take the lead in the\ngive-and-take method with other denominations, even to the extent\nof encouraging the discontinuance of small, struggling, competing\nMethodist churches in the interest of rural Christian service to the\ncommunities involved.\n\n4. That zeal for service to the entire community and a sympathetic\nconsideration for those whose background and training are non-Methodist\nshall characterize the efforts of the Methodist Episcopal Church\nwherever it alone occupies a rural field.\n\n5. That the conference membership of a Methodist Episcopal minister\nshall not be jeopardized by appointment as pastor of a federated or\nundenominational church where such a church is required for the largest\nservice to the community.\u201d\n\nTheological students and college students are not to be outdone by\ntheir elders in bravery. Read the following document for circulation\namong the officials of the various church bodies--a document which\nsounds like the \u201cfirst call\u201d for the rural community church:\n\n\u201cWe the rural college student delegates at the American Country\nLife Association Student Conference believe that the minister who\nserves in a church which has no right to exist loses respect for\nhis profession and can not do outstanding work; we believe that our\ndenominational boards which appropriate money we give to keep churches\ngoing in overchurched communities and which send leadership into such\ncommunities are only making people feel that the ideals of Christianity\nare no higher than those of pagan religions. We would apply the\nprinciples and teachings of Jesus Christ. Therefore we recommend:\n\n1. That students preparing to enter the rural ministry refuse to serve\ncharges in overchurched communities.\n\n2. That we, as rural students, do all in our power in our communities\nand in places of leadership that we may attain to prevent\ndenominational church boards from pouring money and leadership into\ncommunities, which is to be used to perpetuate denominational strife\nthat is destroying the religious life of our communities.\n\n3. That we pledge ourselves to endeavor to substitute the principles\nand teachings of Jesus Christ for narrow denominational creeds and\ndoctrines. In view of this, we shall try to obtain an atmosphere and\nphysical equipment of rural churches, as well as church services\nthemselves, that shall be designed to meet the physical, social,\nmental, and spiritual needs of the people who worship there, regardless\nof their denominations.\u201d\n\nThe press carries the story that down in Georgia five hundred farmers\nlast season dedicated an acre of land apiece, with all it grew, to the\nLord. These pieces of land are spoken of generally in Georgia as the\n\u201cLord\u2019s Acres,\u201d and the \u201cLord\u2019s Acre Plan\u201d is hailed as a hundred per\ncent. way to finance the country church.\n\nThe story goes on to say:\n\n\u201cFarmers in the South are firmly convinced that the Lord\u2019s Acre yields\nbetter crops than surrounding land, and that the entire farm of the one\ngiving the acre is more productive than those of his neighbors.\u201d\n\n\n_The Community Church as a Democracy_\n\nThe community church strikes me as a Lord\u2019s Acre in rural Christendom\nbearing a crop dedicated to God. And, if I read the returns aright,\nthe comparative yield justifies the belief. It is a church of the\npeople--a democracy in very truth. Any subtle influence that would tend\nto wash in upon this democracy and wear it down to a dominating set of\npeople or to a group of negligible folk or to a loose aggregation of\nnondescripts must be walled off with reinforced concrete.\n\nA single type of religious temperament will not govern the range and\ncharacter of the community church. A constant sort of ideals that\nappeals only to the seraphic souls or to other minds only in moments\nof exalted pitch will, by a natural process of elimination, soon\nreduce the church to a temperamental sect. No, the church is made up\nof all temperaments: the matter-of-fact, active, and practical; the\npoetic, sentimental, imaginative; the strenuous; the easy-going; the\nenthusiastic; the petty; the anxious; the generous, self-denying; the\njolly, optimistic; the gloomy, conservative; the militant, crusading;\nthe important; the retiring. Their interests, too--the interests of the\nwhole church are as broad and various as human nature.\n\nA cross-section of Christianity will reveal a ten-thousand fold\nvariegation of human streak and human color wherever religion has\nfiltered into actual life. This meeting-ground of all the higher\ninterests of the community will, therefore, be home for each interest.\nAs no single type of temperament should repulse the others and shrink\nthe church, so no single activity of the church should monopolize\nthe focus of attention. The mission interest, the Bible interest,\nthe educational interest, the interests social, musical, ceremonial,\ndisciplinary, the evangelistic interest, the civic and industrial\ninterest, the financial interest, the idealistic interest, both\npersonal and social--all these and the rest will have good footing in\nthe community church.\n\nA church which should undertake to be a democracy in fact would find\nthat there is only one way of \u201cmaintaining interest\u201d enough actually to\nkeep bringing the people together. This way is sounding God\u2019s summons\nto keep going the redemption of its community at every point. The\nsummons to definite undertakings to improve community life is like the\nsummons to a pioneer homesteader to make a home fit for his family. He\ngears his hands to ax and saw, to plow and hammer, and he knows that\nhe can change the wilderness.\n\nBesides stereotyped church procedure, a steady look at living\nconditions in the community, with the determined expectation of\nchanging these conditions for the better; a look for the moral clues\nto whole wretched situations; a look to disentangle from the chaotic\nmass single, great, unmistakeable moral issues--these steady looks,\nunder God\u2019s summons, must be given anew in every generation to the\nkaleidoscopic facts of human life.\n\nThe church that shall go into the business of becoming self-conscious\nand of realizing its democracy will hear God\u2019s summons to community\nredemption and begin to re-scale the map of church importance and\nusefulness in the community on heroic lines.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note\n\n\nMinor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.\nInconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized where appropriate.\n\nOther spelling has also been retained as originally published except\nfor the corrections below.\n\n  Page 127: \u201cpinked out in my mind the\u201d   \u201cpicked out in my mind the\u201d\n  Page 144: \u201cwhich appopriate money we\u201d   \u201cwhich appropriate money we\u201d","title":"Empty churches : $b The rural-urban dilemma","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":18797}