RtmAL CHRISTENDOM CHAPsLBS ROADS I 1,000. PRIZE BOOK Cornell XDintverstt^ OF THE mew l^orlft State CoUeae of agriculture /i'j...H-..4..^.H- SO. wtI.1.1. ssP Cornell University Library HT 467.R62 Rural Christendom; or, The problems of Ch 3 1924 014 003 432 Cornell University Library r^^^ The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014003432 Gteen jFund :{3oolt Tlo. t5 RURAL CHRISTENDOM THE PROBIvEMS OF CHRISTIANIZING COUNTRY COMMUNITIES CHARLES ROADS AUTHOR OF " CHRIST ENTHRONED IN THE INDUSTRIAL world"; "ABNORMAL CHRISTIANS "; "BIBLE STUDIES rOR TEACHER TRAINING " ; " CHILD STUDY " ; " SUN- DAY-SCHOOL ORGANIZATION AND METHODS," ETC. A PRIZE BOOK SECOND EDITION PHILADELPHIA AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION 1816 Chestnut Street 1910 a OoPYitiQBT, 1009. BT The Ahbrioan Bundat-School Union. PUBUSHBR'S NOTE. This book is issued by the American Sunday- school Union, under the John C. Green Income Fund, which provides, among other things, that the Union shall choose the subject — always ger- mane to the object of the Society — control the Copyright, reducing the price of the book in consideration thereof, and thus aid in securing works of a high order of merit. To conserve the individual traits and responsibility of the author, large liberty is given him in the literary form, style and treatment of the subject. This book enters a comparatively new field, and that it won the prize of one thousand dollars, out of many worthy and scholarly works in competition indicates its merit. The store of information and suggestion it contains on a question of foremost importance in our national life, hitherto scantily treated, will add interest to the comprehensive and scientific treatment of this new topic. September, 1909. CONTENTS. Section I.— The Rural Situation. CHAPTER PAGB I. The Rural Community is Good Ground for Christian Principles 9 II. Actual Present Relations of City and Country.. 18 III. The Open Country and the Small Village 28 IV. The Town Problem 51 V. Towns and Villages of Special Character 62 VI. The Rural Suburb 72 VII. A Great Future for Rural Districts 81 Section II. — How Christian Principles are Spread AND Made Controlling in the Country. VIII. The Twofold Way of Propagating the Gospel lor IX. Gospel Principles for Christ's Workers 106 X. Civic Christianity in Rural Districts 121 XI. Christlike Work-Day Relations 131 XII. The Country Store in the King's Business 141 XIII. Christian Home Life in the Country 150 XIV. Educational Forces Christianizing 167 XV. Social Village Culture for Christ 191 XVI. Village Improvement 199 XVII. The Village Literary Society 208 5 6 CONTENTS. Section III.— The Church for the Kingdom of Christ in Rural Christianizing. CHAPTER PAGE XVIII. The Place and Power of the Local Church 217 XIX. To Every Creature 226 XX. Every Member at Work virith all His Talents. . 239 XXI. To Perfect Every Man in all His Nature 251 XXII. Using all Her Resources 262 XXIII. Discovering, Training, and Placing Her Workers and Leaders 282 XXIV. Specific Organizations in the Country Church. . 291 Appendix 309 Topical Index 315 SECTION I. THE RURAI. SITUATION. RURAL CHRISTENDOM. CHAPTER I. THE RURAL COMMUNITY IS GOOD GROUND FOR CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. In the open farming region and in the quiet country hamlet are found, in all ages, the most fertile soil and genial atmosphere for Christian character and many gospel institutions. With- out making claim now that the country is far more favorable to a conquest by Christian prin- ciples than the stirring city, we will indicate its inviting conditions. It is enough for its rich promise of development to show, that as irrigation and scientific agriculture have re- deemed great wastes of land, so the element of spiritual fertility which is lacking, may be sup- plied with amazing results. The country furnishes what the modem teacher calls " atmosphere " and what he re- gards as so essential to spiritual progress. At- mosphere in this pedagogic sense is much more than static environment. It is environment 10 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. filled with inspirations. And nowhere are the inspirations to profound and strenuous thought, to sincere worship, to larger visions so power- fully rich as where God seems almost visible in the grandeur of his daily miracles in field and sky and mountain. This impressiveness of surroundings is felt even by the mature man from the city if he is at all tender of heart and soul, but when the child, whose open-eyed wonder rests first upon green fields, groves of majestic trees, and the unbroken expanse of blue sky, is given real en- thusiasm for nature and some knowledge of God, he will have a mighty initial impulse in the spiritual. Unquestionably he also needs early in life the stir of city activities, the city's intense stimulation of every faculty, and its in- spiring fellowships, and these are now accessi- ble to ever larger sections of rural communi- ties. But for noblest character which shall in- carnate gospel principles, both religious and ethical, the first touch and the finishing touch may well come from the farm and the village. Since the days of Paul and Luther, and even of Washington and Lincoln, many mighty forces of nature have been tamed and harnessed to serve man, yet now, as then, personal power is the supreme power. It was the thinking of the farmers of 1776, and their splendid characters and patriotic struggles that gave us a free country. It will be the sound thinking upon THE RURAL SITUATION. u great present day issues by rural dwellers who have time to think profoundly that will pre- serve our cherished institutions of church and state. The whole nation is concerned in the problems of the farm and of the village. The scientific spirit of our day, inductive and experimental, tireless and painstaking, aspiring for absolute truth and enlisting armies of in- vestigators, has created in thoughtful men a new attitude toward nature. Science has rec- ognized the reign of law, and there are those who fear for the vision of God. But even the non-Christian masters of science freely admit the necessary existence of Unsearchable Power beyond law and surely the Christian believer recognizes here the heavenly Father. Standing under the country evening sky, un- obstructed by lofty buildings, undimmed by city electric brilliance, can he not see with Young, in his " Night Thoughts," that the " undevout as- tronomer is mad " ; or with Buflfon that " Na- ture is the visible throne of Divine power. Created to be a spectator of the universe, the divine spark by which man is animated, renders him a participant in the divine mysteries. He sees and reads in the book of the world a re- flection of the Divinity." Professor Hitchcock declares, " He who knows tlie most about science ought most powerfully to feel this religious in- fluence. He ought to go forth from it among his fellow men with radiant glory in his 12 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. face, like Moses from the holy mount." Still more sweepingly says Professor Harris, " God's revelation of himself is not limited to a few transcendent but isolated facts of the super- natural. Every lily and every sparrow, be- cause it is the work of his hand reveals in itself the thought and the power of God." So Ruskin, profoundest of scholars and seers, tells us he felt a thrilling awe and wonderful joy in his studies of nature. We have too long in easy imitation urged the Christian to rise from nature to nature's God. Spurgeon's thought is better, " The thing is to go from nature's God down to nature; to know God first in his Word and then see him in his works." It is after the morning communion with the heavenly Father that the hills and fields and sky are filled with him. The growing " nature study " of the schools is extending into the country school, and is spurred on by great numbers of individual enthusiasts. It will inevitably lead to fine spiritual results as even in the rollicking verses of James Whit- comb Riley: " And so I love clover — it seems like a part Of the sacredest sorrows and joys of my heart And wherever it blossoms, oh, there let me bow And thank the good God as I'm thanking him now, And I pray to him still for the strength when I die, To go out in the clover and tell it good-bye, And lovingly nestle my face in its bloom, While my soul slips away in a breath of perfume." THE RURAL SITUATION. 13 The time has indeed come when the man whose eye is on the furrow he is plowing in the country, and the man who is gazing on his rake for gold in the city, shall both look upward and see their crown as the sons of God, their God transcendent but truly immanent in the land where his daily wonders are wrought on every foot of ground. When we see these things through Christ's eyes and the poets' eyes we shall measure more fully the advantages of the country for Christianizing influences. 1. Now when we are coming to appreciate more adequately the physical basis necessary to largest Christian life we see that it was in the country that the Washingtons and Lincolns, the Luthers, and still earlier Joseph and Moses and David grew the firmly knit bodies which served them in long-continued strains of grandest achievement. Their strenuous spirits mightily wrestling to express the life of God found pow- erful forms able to hold and to manifest them. 2. Think again of the nearness of God in na- ture moving the heart. 3. Only in the country is there the long winter of leisure for thought and meditation. There is, of course, much work on the farm in winter in feeding the stock, caring for and marketing of some crops, planning and erecting additional buildings, and so on, and there are men who " pot- ter " about the barn and stable all day with a few acres of a farm, but to the farmer who wills to 14 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. have leisure, in most cases, all necessary work in winter is done in a few morning and eve- ning hours, and he is in his comfortable study five to seven hours a day. The absence of city distractions, round of fashionable follies, and manifold temptations to idling and dissipations, is an incalculable wealth of opportunity. The " old " farmer — in President Butter- field's happy classification * of " old farmer," " new farmer " and " mossback " — ^the " old farmer " who numbered ninety-six in every hun- dred of the people of America in 1800 " con- quered the American continent." It was his clear and virile thinking that broke away from old despotisms and wrongs and established the wonderful ideals and institutions of the Repub- lic. And, let it be often said, the future of America will largely rest upon the thinking of the "new farmer" who must ever be, if men are to have food to live, the largest single ele- ment of our population. What the farmer- citizen will finally conclude as to the issues of capital and labor, a rational system of finance, public franchises, and all else, will probably win. The farm-house now has the long evening of civilization. Few farmer families think of retir- ing to bed at the " candle-light " of our grand- mother's day. The candle itself is almost a relic. The development of the kerosene lamp to * " Chapters in Rural Progress," p. 53. THE KUKAL SITUATION. 15 its brilliancy of light and safety greatly lengthens life, and constitutes the new civiliza- tion which begins after the work day is closed. The Lincoln of to-day, with his passion for books, sits beside a Rochester lamp, with circular or double wick, air-fed, brilliant as electric light and far better than kings had a century ago. In the small towns and villages electric lights or acetylene gas are more common than jn city homes. These hours for home and study dur- ing the day and the long evening give the country church its rich opportunity for ex- tended Bible study plans. If wise, fresh, and practical methods are inaugurated and by earnest personal work their general adoption is secured, the winter months on the farm will grow most beautiful characters, Christian home life and powerful churches. What splendid reading and thinking some farmers are doing these days, and what delightful and stirring discussions of deep current questions by the well-informed par- ents and the bright children there I Family wor- ship around an open Bible read and talked over before the tender and comprehensive prayer, and then the time for private communion with the heavenly Father. 4. The pre-eminence of the church in the country in the public eye is another vast gain for Christian life. The church steeple in the country is higher than any other building. It is not sunk in wells of brick and stone made by l6 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. office sky-scrapers, huge manufacturing plants, and gigantic department stores. It is first in real importance as a public building and not fourth or fifth. There is no newspaper tower like an- other Babel overshadowing it in physical lofti- ness or in influence; there is no factory whose smoke entirely obscures the church building; and there are no playhouses, clubhouses, or worse, that are more attractive in appearance and program to the people. Who can measure the advantage of this church pre-eminence? 5. Social conditions are freer in the country. They may be controlled by Christian influences. Old associations of the country home, the old hearthstone, the old oaken bucket at the well, the old apple trees, the old graveyard at the dear old church are ties of power, ^d the wide kinships of blood, the ideal friendships, and the abundant hospitality are there as no- where else. There are not the social extremes of rich and very poor. The rural community is good ground for the Christian life both in material and in environ- ment. In the farm regions there are drawbacks in contrast with city conditions such as scat- tered church membership, but this difficulty is also in the downtown city church; and in the large village and in the town the church mem- bers are usually only a few minutes from the church. There is the lack of intense activity and city ideals, but in the city church these are THE RURAL SITU A TION. 17 often outside. On the whole, discounting all that a just estimate requires, the rural districts, even of the sparsely settled farm community, offer very good ground for largest Christian effort. And the village and the town are still better. CHAPTER 11. ACTUAL PRESENT RELATIONS OF CITY AND COUNTRY. Community life in America, city and rural, may be broadly divided into five distinct types. There are not simply two, city and farm life, as we usually classify them, but two different city types and three rural types of community. I. The city of metropolitan size is itself one problem, so vast and perplexing, that the at- tention of Christian leaders has been upon it al- most exclusively for a generation. The engulf- ing of the city in business, its whirl of social excesses, its overwhelming rush and crush of strenuous good and evil crowd and cramp the church from every side. It would seem that to save our greatest cities they must be stirred also by Christian forces outside of the church in active co-operation with aggressive forces inside the church. And all these forces have long been recruited from spiritual and active country congregations. The city problem itself IS also a country problem, and the live and prom- ising end of it is in the country. i8 THE RURAL SITUATION. ig 2. The next type of community is the large city ranging from ten thousand to over one hun- dred thousand population. There are several hundred such in America. They still have large and attractive residential sections in proximity to business centers ; they have not the mad haste of metropolitan activity; they have a more homogeneous population. This large city not metropolitan in character has, for Christian work, much of the great advantage of largest cities for intensely stimulating atmosphere of general enterprise, for large numbers of people easily accessible, and high ideals and general culture ; and it has freer social relations and less of extremes of wealth and poverty. There too the church is still the most popular place of re- sort, the pastor still a prominent citizen, and Christian fellowship close and delightful. This is, on the whole, the most fertile field for the Christian worker to-day. It may yet be saved by its powerful churches reaching outward. In many ways it sheds a light upon rural problems by contrast of opportunities and suggestions of methods. But it is a city field in every respect. There remain three types of community which are clearly rural. Alike in general limitations and conditions they are different in important particulars. 3. The open country of farming,- mining or lumbering people is one type, and their small villages belong to the same class. Then comes ao RURAL CHRISTENDOM. the town numbering from fifteen hundred up, with its greater conveniences of living, its denser population, some civic organization, and better schooling. In places remote from large cities we may include some towns of five thou- sand as having about the same general charac- teristics. Lastly we have the suburb or resi- dential section near to 'a great city but not a part of its organic government, where rural conditions prevail, but with many new features to be considered. The United States Census classifies as " city " a place having 8,000 people or over. In 1900 there were 550 such cities. But this line of 8,000 for a place does not strictly divide be- tween city and country conditions, for there are cities above that population with rural charac- teristics in every respect, and many places below 8,000, some of 5,000 people with a city govern- ment, city activities, and society. Allowing for these exceptions it is probable that about thirty millions of American people live in purely city conditions. But by far the larger number live in rural America, in ten thousand towns and villages, and in the open farming region. The total number of these country people is over 50,000,000. Outside of densely settled New England, New York and three other States, the rest of the country has fully three-fourths of its people amid rural conditions. Problems con- THE RURAL SITUATION. 21 cerning Ihem are supremely important not only to them but to the nation and to the world. It is of course true that cities in America and in the world have grown amazingly. And some rural sections have decreased in population by influx to the cities. But rural America as a whole has also grown to vast proportions and is growing more rapidly than ever. The United States Census figures show this astonishing growth of farm and village population by dec- ades. The census defines as rural all people in cities less than 8,000 in population and the comparison is made on this basis: — Population in Rural Districts in the United States. 1840 16,615,459 1850 20,294,290 i860 26,371,065 1870 30,486,496 1880 38,837,236 1890 44,349,747 1900 50,485,268 *i9o6 54,107,571 This crowding of new people is upon farms «ven more than into villages and hamlets. The number f of farms in 1880 was 4,008,907, in • Census Bulletin 71. latest estimated population by Cen- sus Bureau including interdecennial census by fourteen states. t Census Bulletin 237 — figures for igoo include the small number in Alaska and Hawaii.. 82 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. 1890, 4,564,641 and in 1900, ^,729^^7 growing much beyond rural population as a whole in the last decade. In forty years the twenty-six millions of i860 almost doubled, and in sixty years the country population increased more than threefold. The United States as a whole has yet about three out of every five of its people living on farms or in small towns. 4. The growth of cities itself necessitates enormous growth of farms and farm laborers to supply the cities with food. Already the pres- sure of increasing millions of people is upon food supply, and is alarmingly raising prices. This is sending other millions of people into the ever more profitable general and special lines of agriculture. The increase in annual value of farm products, 1890 to 1900, almost doubled that of the preceding decade, and for 1907 added 58 per cent, to i960, (1890, $2,460,107,454 and 1900, $4,739,118,752, in 1907, $7,412,000,000).* 5. Still more significant than the wonderful absolute multiplication of population in rural districts is the fact, shown by the last United States Census, that the drift city-ward is de- creasing and that a decided return movement from city to country is under way. This long time congestion of city life by the crowding in of the ambitious boy and girl from the farm, the town and the village, has aroused great dis- * Estimate of Secretary of Agriculture. THE RURAL SITUA TION. 23 cussion. The city-ward movement is over a hundred years old, beginning in 1800 when 96 per cent, of the people were in the country and only four per cent, in the few cities of over 8000 people then in existence; the movement grew slowly until in 1850 urban people had I2j4 per cent.; then it leaped rapidly as shown by decades to 16, 21, 22^, and in 1890 to 29 per cent, of the whole. But this promises to be the high water mark, for now the swing of popula- tion is reversing unmistakably, though great cities will continue to grow amazingly and smaller cities multiply. While there were 448 cities above 8000 in 1890 and 550 such cities in 1900, a gain of one hundred more, none the less is the city-to-country movement remarkable. In the decade 1880 to 1890 it was shown by the census that two-thirds of the increase of the people went to the cities, one-third to the country, but for the decade 1890 to 1900 the proportion was nearly the same for each. The exact figures are an increase of 6,374,000 for the country, and 6,736,000 for cities. From 1900 to 1906,* the increase for rural districts is 3,112,693, for cities over 8000 population, 3,466,927, showing that this movement to the country continues. Every thoughtful observer has noted the country-ward sweep, every city pastor of large and wealthy churches lamentably * See Census Bulletin 71, the latest estimates of the U. S. Census Bureau of Population before the new census 1910. 24 RUKAL CHRISTENDOM. knows of it, and every real estate dealer is try- ing to adjust rents and new houses to it. 6. This rural trend is sure to grow to larger proportions. The call of the country is ever louder and more alluring. The longing grows for the open field and the larger free environ- ment for homes by leaps and bounds. Every consideration of economy and sentiment aids it. Parents believe they can train children bettei away from the crowded streets, under the trees, and in green fields. The hard-pressed, nerve- racked business man and the professional man of failing health sniff the country air with new vigor and inspiration, and are coming in col- onies, by villages and towns built almost in a day. The love of flowers and birds attracts many, and the call of the fields and streams and woods is eagerly answered now that electric cars whirl from the city in all directions far out, and automobiles have come, and airships next, and what not for rapid intercommunication. This mingling of city life with the country must have larger discussion later, for it will extend farther away from cities, and into the open farming region where already beautiful mansions on large estates are common sights. 7. The rural districts are now strategic for Christianizing all America. There is where the forces of evil are weakest, unorganized, and un- entrenched. The saloon is rapidly withdrawing from rural America, and resorts of evil for THE RURAL SITUATION. 25 gambling and lust never were known except in a certain kind of town. Moral and civic victories at the present time are won in rural sections, and in States with few large cities. The national well-being looks to country voters and country- legislators for reform of all kinds, and there are the ever favorable battlefields. And for relig- ious work the same amount of effort always produces many times the result in conversion and strengthening of the church which is pos- sible in cities. The same expenditure of money will bring immensely larger returns for the Christian life. Country boys and girls crowd into the cities and it is easier to save them to Christ before they leave home than when in the maelstrom of city vices and sins. It is cheaper to prevent pollution of the living stream at its country springs than to filter it in the city. In the strong and attractive town or village church the future city dweller may be trained in char- acter and for service. Every weak country church is also a menace to the city. 8. For its. own sake rural America must be Christianized. It contains three-fifths of all the people, and is thus by far the larger field as compared with all the cities. It will be easier to save this three-fifths of the country than that two-fifths city America. The leverage for the whole nation is there at present, and the future swings that way. It is the pressing problem of to-morrow» .In all the past the city was. fed by 26 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. streams from the farm and the village, its great leaders for the most part were bred in the country, and its best people came from it. It will continue to be country-fed and country-re- plenished in the future, though some of the best young men and women under the greater en- thusiasm for farming and its scientific develop- ment even now choose to remain there. And it is now certain that some of the best people from the country to the city are return- ing to the country to live. There will thus be the daily freshening and purifying of city people by the country more and more, so that to save the city we must develop the country church to its finest and loftiest service, character and training. This means that the city Christian must vit- ally interest himself in the country problem. He must energetically, as he knows so well "how to do, throw himself into the rural church, help to finance its forward movements, and develop its utmost power. The uptown church needs larger organization for the kingdom of Christ, the downtown church must not be abandoned, but back of both of them is the country church which often actually sends into them more mem- bers than these churches win from their city fields. Do not these city churches owe to the country careful study of conditions, deepest sympathy, and support, and fervent prayers? Let this study of rural conditions by city Chris- tian leaders be at first hand by going into the THE RURAL SITUATION. 27 country personally for it and patiently and fully investigating actual conditions. In no other way can deepest sympathy and intelligent co-operation be effected. For it is one thing to read about the sore needs of rural America in a fity home, and quite another to study these needs under the trees of the farm and in the streets of the little village. CHAPTER III. THE OPEN FARMING COUNTRY AND THE SMALL VILLAGE. American farm homes are farther apart than any in the world, except possibly in some parts of Russia, and more isolated than any in history. In Oriental countries like Palestine, the farmers dwelt together in villages or walled towns and went out to their fields in the morning. Fields for pasturage were communal and free to all in many lands, and where the fields for tilling were allotted to individuals the farms were small. The families lived in the social advantages of the walled town so necessary for mutual protection from bands of robbers, or predatory kings and chieftains. In the Middle Ages farming was done by feudal lords owning vast tracts and their bond- men lived in groups of houses or villages like the slaves on great southern plantations before i860. In small countries like England, Ireland and Scotland the landlord nobility still hold title to immense estates given out in small tracts of 38 THE RURAL SITU A TION. 29 a few acres each to tenants, and where the farms are owned by individuals they are small patches compared with the two hundred to six hundred acres of the American farmer. The homestead of the great West contains 160 acres, but the purchase of neighbors' holdings doubles and quadruples many of these, and even in the older Eastern States and Middle West, except New England, two hundred to three hundred acre farms are almost the rule. The American pioneer struck out with his family alone into the vast unbroken forest.* Making peace with the few Indians who roamed over what are now great States he cleared a few acres, staked out as much more as he could, and worked while neighbors came on following his example in subjugating the wilderness. Miles apart were these early settlers and they learned to live alone. Tlie vast Commonwealths have thus filled up, but even now the population of the whole country, distributing that of cities with the rest, is only twenty-eight f to the square mile, while in France it is 187, in Ger- many 225, and in Holland 440. The intensive farming of France and Germany requires only a few acres to support a family, and villages and towns near each other crowd these countries. Subtracting the population of cities and • See Roosevelt's " Winning of the West." t Census Bulletin 71. Estimates of Population for 1904, 1905, 1906, page 17. 30 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. larger towns, say above 2,000, in the United States the actual farm populations on the land being cultivated may be estimated as probably less than fifteen to the square mile. This means only about three families of five each, on a great stretch of every 640 acres, a square mile. Even Russia has sixteen people, counting all her peo- ple, to the square mile and the farming there, for the most part, is not done by isolated single families scattered over large sections. .America is probably unique in this condition of widely separated homes of the farmers. Before the new era of electric cars, rural free delivery of mails, and better roads, this isolation of farm life was becoming unendurable to multitudes. Be- tween 1880 and 1890 the rural population of no less than seven States * actually declined fully 200,000 people though they gained 2,500,000 in their cities. These States are Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Mary- land, and Illinois. Other States showed a simi- lar drift to the cities. Farmers, unable to sell or rent farms, simply abandoned them. In New Hampshire alone the State Commissioner reported 1442 vacant or abandoned farms. In Vermont f good land was * Dr. Josiah Strong in " New Era " gives these facts. t Hon O. L. Martin, Vermont Com. of Agriculture, explains (letter June 21, 1909) that the Vermont abandoned farms were those earliest settled. The land was rough and later not profitable. " There are no first class farms in Vermont, abandoned." This is probably true of the cases in othet States. THE RURAL SITUATION. 31 offered at one or two dollars an acre. In New York State in 1889 in Wayne County there were 400 empty houses, in one town fifty, in another thirty. In Michigan there were 7419 fewer farmers in 1890 than in 1880, though the popula- tion of the State increased over 400,000. In general out of a total of 25,746 townships in thirty-nine States and Territories, 10,063 town- ships * lost populations between 1880 and 1890. So widely distributed was this movement from country to cities. This loneliness is most painful in farm regions five, ten to fifteen miles from any railroad. In towns and villages along railroad lines there is usually a stirring life and more frequent visits to cities and larger towns. The inland villages and cross-roads suffer in every phase of their life from the attractions of the cities. Churches had become depleted, struggling, and some closed. In one New York village there were two abandoned Protestant churches, one active Roman Catholic church, and fourteen saloons. In another a former Presbyterian church is now used as a barn, the Baptist church is abandoned, and the two Methodist churches are almost extinct. These conditions were found * * 1880 to 1890. Dr. Strong. But lest we should become pessimistic let us remember the large majority of townships which actually gained population. And the gain in number of farms i8go to igoo from 4,564, 641 to 5,739,657 a gain of 25 per cent. This, too, not by subdividing into smaller farms but chiefly by adding new farms for the average size of farms 32 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. in many States to a greater or less extent. In Maine there were ninety-five towns and planta- tions where no religious services of any sort were held, and even more than that number in Illinois without the Gospel. With this deterioration of churches went every other good thing, and there is no wonder that eminent observers, like the Home Mission Secretaries of the Qiurches, the Evangelical Alliance leaders. Dr. Josiah Strong, and others, became pessimistic over the outlook. They argued very conclusively to themselves that this drift to the cities depleting the country would go on with accelerating force. But it was not that the American loves farm- ing less. He loves his fellow-men more. Re- lief has come from the economic side,* where the Church was helpless. New means of inter- communication, new and deeper scientific inter- est in farming itself, have revived the former fascination of the field, the plow and the orchard, and with human society assured, the churches will be reopened, good schools built, and farms reoccupied. " Uncle Sam " has indeed been rich enough to give all who wanted it a farm,f and the eager- also increased (1890 to 1900) from 136^^ acres each to 146.6 acres each. • See Chap. VII. t The public lands still unappropriated and unreserved, that is, open to settlement and farming by the people, July i, 1908, THE RURAL SITVA TION. 33 ness of the people in rushing into any newly opened territory is proof of how deep is the significance of individual ownership. The great majority of farms* are operated by their owners, 3,713,371 farms out of 5739-657; by share tenants, 1,273,366, cash tenants, 752,920. This sense of independence and prospect of a large future has been an incalculable civilizing force in the lonely regions of our great America. And the farm home has become better in many ways for it. I. Thus it has remained for American farm homes to become the loneliest places in the civil- ized world. Yet so vast is our wonderful domain that with all the isolation there are nearly six millions of such scattered homes. More than one-third f of all work-people in the United States live in ones and twos on these farms, ten millions of farmers and helpers. In their villages near ' by there are of mechanics, merchants, and laborers nearly five million more. For all of these people on the farm, or cross- roads, mining, lumbering, or fishing village, there is the absence of city temptations and ex- are 754,886,286 acres. From 1878 to 1908 there were 88,945 entries or purchases, representing about that number of fami- lies for public lands alone. • Census Bulletin 237, p. 6. t U. S. Census Population. General Tables p. 7. Total number in all occupations 29,287,070, in agricultural pursuits^ 10,438,219. 34 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. citements, but also the lack of city activities, in- spirations, restraints and enforcement of law. And there are many evils peculiar to the country. The farm boy and girl have no helpful as- sociations except schoolmates in winter and the Sunday-school class for such as that reaches. Do we realize what it means that there are fully twenty-five millions of such lonely young peo- ple, now with minds better educated, hungry for books but whose reading is largely unsupplied and unguarded? Long stretches of days alone, uneventful days, when the bad novel the boy gets makes worse impressions than on city boys. His few companions with their total stock of a few cheap books pass to him the evil because the good does not occupy or preempt the ground. This unoccupied condition is the real peril of the farming district. Everything intellectual, moral and spiritual in the average sparsely set- tled community is largely unoccupied and unde- veloped. And what evil comes is weeds, spon- taneous growths of the sinful because the good is not cultivated diligently. So time hangs hteavily on the young man. Later in life he will go to the lodge one evening a week and to the grange occasionally, for there are few places that have not a " secret order " of some kind or an association or farmers' meeting occasionally. But there are six nights in every week and even Sunday night has, in many places, irregular services. What can the voune man or THE RURAL SITUATION. 35 the wide-awake boy do with all these unoc- cupied nights? He will not in these days go to bed at " candle-light " and he may not, in every case, love books well enough to read and prob- ably does not have books if he did love reading. The country schoolmaster and the pastor can tell pathetic tales of their unsuccessful efforts to induce many a plodding farmer to buy books, or to send his aspiring children to college. They succeed in some cases but fail often even to have the boy released from farm work to push his own way to an education. The country church too often is planned for the tired men and women who want a minimum of church meetings and activities. The super- abundant energies of the young people are scarcely touched. Even the Sunday meetings are more soothing to the overworked father than inspiring to youth. The preaching every two weeks gives little opportunity for extended ethical instruction and ideals of living. The religious needs of the people cannot be met by such infrequent discourses. Thus the child's moral education and training is left largely to the country home. But the Christian home is usually the creation of a vigorous church and requires such a church to maintain it. The church spiritually weak has homes without family worship or religious education, and thus the young people of the farm 36 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. or little village are exposed to peculiarly strong temptations unprepared. 2. The actual moral conditions of many open country communities, allowing for some notable exceptions, are not the sweet and pure innocence which casual visitors glowingly describe. There are sights and circumstances which sorely try the virtue of young people and children. Animals, especially the large animals of the farm and village, are not secluded in their procreative times, but are in sight of the excitable imagina- tions and immature consciences of boys and girls. One Christian farmer in Maryland, among the few of thousands I have observed, was alive to this peril and in all his arrangements he was scrupulously careful to keep his children away from such scenes. He told of his extreme cau- tion even with his son, then of full age, and that in home conversation the utmost purity was maintained. It was beautiful to see the result in the sweet refinement, modest womanhood and manliness of his children. But this is sadly exceptional. Gross and amaz- ing stupidity in this respect marks the conduct of many nominally Christian farmers. Their young children are early corrupted in their thoughts by these sights, and with so little be- sides to divert their minds the effect of these exciting suggestions is fearful in self-abuse and far worse. A recent discussion in a religious paper of these influences, in which pastors, THE RURAL SITUATION. 37 school-teachers, and Christian fathers particip- ated, revealed shocking things.* It is a marvel that so many escape ruin, other influences for- tunately coming from the church or school to save them, but the social morality in many rural districts is deplorable. The criminal courts of the county have long lists of these crimes, though only a few reach that light, and socia,l customs are disgustingly free, and many fall. One naturally hesitates to give facts of these vices. Any one can gather them in typical country districts remote from cities, but these very farmers who are so wickedly obtuse hotly deny that any evil results from their careless- ness. They ought to inquire of country physi- cians, of whom many are intimate friends of the writer, and learn the truth. Young men after their conversion tell their pastors, sorrowfully, of customs from which their unwatchful parents did not guard them, though some of these par- ents themselves fell by these perils. In one vil- lage, not so bad as some, nearly a dozen of the prominent families began their homes in shame. The country schoolhouse and its surroundings exhibit the children's impure thoughts. There is wicked carelessness in the conversa- tion of older people. Matters concerning ani- mals are freely discussed with the children listening and tempted to indecencies. The father thinks it all safe to talk to men and boys when * Sunday School Times, «8 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. the women are not in hearing. But here the peril is greatest of all. "Don't send my boy where your ^rl can't go, For aboy'sora girl's sin is sin, you know. And my baby boy's hands are as clean and white, And his heart as pure as your girl's to-night" 3. Foolish superstitions are not confined to the country. They linger long even in great cities. Few sky-scrapers or hotels have any " thirteen " rooms. One large building defied the supersti- tion and the " thirteen " rooms on every floor remained vacant though scores of applicants came. One brave man occupied the only such room and saw the other rooms renumbered " 12 A." No room in such buildings is opened on Friday to begin business. So the city has no stones to cast at country superstitions for the thirteen and Friday notions are not only sense- less but peculiar for dishonoring Christ. Fri- day, Good Friday, an unlucky day for the world ! And the thirteenth at the table was Christ for he sat at the head after the twelve were there! Some farm superstitions have at least a show of probability in sense and reason. But all are destructive of real trust in God, and of wise reasoning and decision about important concerns of life. How demoralizing to real character it is to believe in the good luck of finding four- leaved clover, or horseshoes, or carrying a rabbit's foot or a horse-chestnut in the pocket; THE RURAL SITUATION. 39 how childish the man's or woman's mind fright- ened by the hoot of an owl or the howl of the dog. There are a great number of weather signs and superstitions just as unscientific and foolish, but still widely current. But think also of watching the phases of the moon in planting,, and other astrological notions in deciding grave issues of life; what direful things will happen because they saw the new moon over the wrong shoulder. There is belief in fate and luck, in fortune-tellers, and a lingering dread of re- pulsive old hags, who are not always unwilling to be feared as witches. All these are notions which are impossible to reason away because they were never reasoned there, but which paralyze higher character, all real education and moral progress. Scientific lectures of Agricultural Depart- ments of States and of the National Government discoursing of better seed and analysis of soils run against these ancient notions in disgust. Sunday-school teachers who are lifting nobler ideals find them serious obstacles. They are not amusing but fearful and subtle inventions of the evil one, and some like the " Friday " terror an amazing dishonor to Christ. Is it not astonish- ing that these bald and silly heathenisms ^till persist? And still more surprising that the Church does not see how destructive of true religion they are! After all our progress in culture and rational Christianity that such super- 40 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. stitious fears should still be an obstacle to Christian work everywhere. 4. The loneliness of the farm and the few contacts with strangers make the child there afraid of new people. He shrinks from them painfully, speaks little and embarrassingly, and misses the development of gifts of expression. This serious drawback is not overcome by church and school in many cases. Children are crammed with knowledge from their studies but cannot use it effectively, and doubtless many a promising character is driven back to obscurity. This is another sadly undeveloped asset of country Christianity. There are no great happenings in country life. The round of daily duties becomes monotonous and with no enthusiasms of nobler pursuits there comes carelessness of little things. Slovenliness of person and of thinking results, and much more, but that so often God has some splendid mother here and there or some earnest worker who saves a few individuals from this drifting, drifting of every sort. 5. Infidel arguments against the Bible and against religious convictions reach the awaken- ing country boy with a strange fascination. Their boldness and assurance excite admiration and their freshness is a delightful sensation,* * Sunday-School Missionary, July, 1909, pp. 5, 6. A Sun. day-scliool missionary in Washington State writes, " On one of my trips I found a mother and quite a number of children THE RURAL SITUATION. 41 where so few things out of the humdrum are said or done. The old home library still con- tains the ancient book of Thomas Paine and the well-thumbed lectures of Ingersoll. There are no replies at hand to these startling and ap- parently conclusive arguments, as the youthful thinker regards them, for if he ventures to ask the pastor concerning them he receives usually a severe general rebuke for reading such books and in rarest cases only a patient guidance back to the truth. The plodding and care-worn father and mother sometimes are still such thinkers as inspire the boy to bring his questionings and doubts to them, and among the multitudes lost to faith a few are saved. But in these cases of doubts from skeptical books, as in everything else pertaining to helpful religious instruction and training in the country, little or no individ- ual work is being done where it might be done most thoroughly. When these country boys and girls come to cities they are rudely jostled out of their doubts in many cases by the discovery at home near dinner-time. She said she was in favor of my work but her husband was opposed to religious things. She however invited me to stay and I found him a pleasant speak- ing man. At the meal he said, ' We don't give thanks to a mythical being here, we thank the hands who provided it.' The children listened eagerly to the conversation. One little boy, eight years old, spoke up, ' Our God is nature I ' " To another he suggested prayer, but that man said, " O we don't have such nonsense, I have studied the Bible thoroughly and find there is nothing in that." 42 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. that advanced thought has long ago buried Paine and Ingersoll into oblivion. But the child- hood faith is also gone. The rural church and home should be specially alert to meet this peril in an environment so seriously stimulating its growth. 6, It is inspiring to find rural communities in which a strong church has created a new and refined condition of things reaching homes, social customs, and general life. We know such splendid churches which are a wonder of effi- ciency. Think of a building seating six hundred people in an open country with scarcely a house in sight, a building in attractive setting and modern appliances, and on Sunday morning pro- cessions of carriages from all directions fill the ample churchyard and the people crowd the church. A Sunday-school with modem ap- pliances, graded lessons, trained teachers, pre- cedes the general service and its fine singing, deep earnestness, and excellent results stir every heart. There are many such churches in purely farming districts. The supreme opportunity of the church in these places is shown by the fact that the church determines its character, moral, social and in- tellectual. For the church is the sum of all kinds of helpful influences there. Just as the father in the home formerly was civil ruler, priest, teacher, physician, as well as parent, and when the Fifth Commandment enjoins honor to THE RURAL SITUATION, 43 him it includes honoring all these, so in the sparsely settled country is the church social center, intellectual club, entertainment and re- ligious guide in one. There are other churches which show great possibilities half developed and are doing much for the Kingdom of Christ. But they are slow to appreciate the value of modern organiza- tion of their forces. And the average country church is yet in a miserable condition. Slower than the slowest ox-team, long ago discarded in all but a few sections, with slip-shod organ- ization, no financial system, no interest in the Sunday-school, and holding no service at all in the slightest rain or threatening cloud. Every possibility of good in the people and in the community undeveloped, this country church is a burden to its officials and still a large pro- portion of the whole. Men well acquainted with the country churches of great States report that they do not know of any that are aggressive. Some of these churches are in a combination or group miles apart with services every fortnight or once in three weeks if the weather is fair. They are financially in chaos and raise so little money that they are limited to such scanty pas- toral care. A few such churches have the en- tire time of a pastor but he gives one service a week, no prayer meeting, no Sunday-school in winter, and what shall be thought of such a man ? 7. Petty crimes of violence, thieving, and gross 44 RUKAL CHRISTENDOM. drunkenness where they prevail are due to the absence of law enforcement.* The saloon, for- tunately, is driven out of farming regions alto- gether in many States, and is rapidly going out of others, but where it still exists it is in its worst form. There country dances, wild and demoralizing, add to current evils. It is a misfortune also that the settled condi- tions in farm life leave so little to develop cour- age or bold initiative. In the early pioneer times the hunting of wild animals, the fearful Indian wars, and other perils exercised splendid courage. What can be done in the humdrum of the pres- ent day to compensate for this loss of stimulus to nobler character? On the other hand the introduction of much machinery on the farm has given a striking intellectual quickening. Work with whirring wheels, the puffing and scream of a steam engine, is always fascinating to men and boys and a more intense atmosphere of activity comes with the new and better mower and reaper, the steam thresher, the latest planter, and numerous other machines like incubators, cream separators, and other appliances. 8. The country store is still a unique civiliz- * " Intemperance is largely the result of the barrenness of farm life, particularly of the lot of the hired man " — Report of U. S. Commission on Country Life, p. 44. The same monotony reacts toward other excesses of vice and crime ■when young and vigorous life is starving for sensations or activities. THE RURAL SITUATION. 45 ing or a demoralizing social center, and these stores range all the way from a dirty, low-ceil- inged, shabbily-kept little shop, often with a liquor attachment, to the ambitious country de- partment store with attractions copied from the city. The store is often also the Post-office, un- less rural free delivery has come, and then its power is increased. All the local characters are there sitting on the counter or huddling about the stove, the news of all the country round is gathered and discussed, notices of sales and church festivals are posted and read over and over. Here is an opportunity which some ear- nest men who are proprietors have used help- fully for good. 9. Farm homes vary as widely as do churches and stores. There are refined Christian fathers and mothers who stock their shelves with books and magazines, turn their best room into a me- chanic's shop with all kinds of tools for the boys, have a piano or organ, excellent pictures, bright games, and every possible attraction for happy children growing into beautiful character. One would think that every American parent would recognize that the absence of ordinary town and city attractions really enjoined upon them the duty of making their homes compensate childhood for such a loss, but there are houses, not homes, whose wholly unadorned, rudely furnished rooms are hardly as comfortable as some stables for the blooded stock.' As Caesar 46 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. said of Herod the Great, " One would better be Herod's hog than his wife, for as a nominal Jew he would not kill a hog," so one would fare bet- ter from some sodden, plodding, stingy farmer as his horse than as his child. 10. This preliminary survey, however, should emphasize and re-emphasize the unoccupied re- ligious condition of the open country rather than any condition of settled evils. There are rank weeds growing but it is because the soil is not full of good seed. There is no reason for dis- couragement, nor for discounting the value of the country as the field for producing finest character and Christian leaders when it is wisely worked. It is a soil which though hardened by some evils allowed to troop over it, has yet few of the throngs of evils of the city; though it is not deepened by meditation and prayer as it may be, is by no means made shallow by petty whims of appetite and fashion; it is still simple, natural, genuine for the most part; and it is unoccupied and free from crowding of thorns of wild greed, passion, revelries and pleasures. It is in the green and not in the sere and yel- low leaf as so much of city life has become. It is not surfeited with rounds of entertainments or attempts at them, with intellectual feasts, and then left with appetites for all simple and good things gone. In the country there is yet hunger for the true and the pure in simple adornment. Much light on all country conditions is thrown THE RURAL SITUA TION. 47 by former President Roosevelt's Commission on Country Life, .which made its report to him in Feb., 1909.* This able body of experts in Agri- culture and Economics held hearings in about thirty States and received one hundred and twenty-five thousand answers to a series of ques- tions about rural life, and a large volume of in- formation by letters and special reports. They report that the level of country well-being is higher than ever before ; that country population is increasing in wealth and multiplying the con^ veniences of living. The Commission gives expression to their wishes and needs as the farmers voice them, and everywhere emphasis is laid upon the need of good roads; almost every part of the country is awaking to this as the first need. Equal em- phasis ■ is laid upon the need of more effective schools and a training in them for the farm rather than away from it. They point to the imme- diate necessity of fundamental changes. Then they want the extension of rural free delivery of mails, of parcels post, and wherever they have discussed it of postal savings banks. Local com- mercial organizations for buying and selling by the farmers themselves are being widely organized. The Commission earnestly urges more atten- tion to health and sanitation. The country has not organized to prevent typhoid fever and other * United States Senate Document 705 contains the Report of the National Commission on Country Life, 48 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. diseases. There is great difficulty also about farm labor, difficulty in acquiring ownership of farm lands, and unsatisfactory systems of tenantry. " In general the country needs Communication, Education, Organization." For moral and spirit- ual work, also, the country is yet virgin soil. There are better equipped pastors and teachers willing to go and spend their lives in country pastorates, and with the splendid future coming to rural districts it is certain that still more capable men will enter these fields. Let us re- member Christ's own wonderful work in country places and all the inspiring aspects of it as a Christian opportunity. II. Beyond these more thickly settled rural communities there are yet vast stretches of coun- try so sparsely inhabited that even the smallest be- ginning of church organization is thought im- practicable. It is difficult to realize that there are tens of thousands of these farm homes which are miles apart and only the cross-roads country store and blacksmith shop with an occasional tav- ern are in closer proximity, being the only groups of houses in whole counties or large sections of counties in many States. Here the Sunday- school missionary has accomplished his great work gathering the few children and parents into schools for Bible instruction. They have become in many cases centers of religious awak- ening and moral power. The American Sunday- school Union with about 250 such missionaries THE RURAL SITUATION, 45 at work has penetrated into the farthest pioneer regions, and the Presbyterian Church, the Bap- tists, the Congregationalists, the Methodists, and other denominations are organizing in these strictly farm regions thousands of little Sunday- schools, the only religious service for miles for these lonely homes. Probably 25,000 to 30,000 such farming regions are still to be reached by religious effort almost wholly in the form of Sunday-schools. We can only partially imagine how these Sun- day-schools are welcomed by the isolated pioneer family. In many of them the parents came from the older States and had enjoyed the privileges of church life from childhood. Now for twenty years in some- cases, as the writer knows from personal acquaintance with these regions, they have not heard a sermon preached nor partici- pated in a religious meeting! Can you see that little group of ten or at most twenty, assembled after many miles of travel, and calling themselves a Sunday-school with all the officers regularly chosen, singing the sweet old hymns of former years, engaging together in prayer, Bible reading and study? But you cannot see the thrilling memories awakened in those hearts nor the great joy of the humble service. Many of these Sunday-schools will continue for a generation — one (a Union school) has ex- isted in Pennsylvania for over seventy-five years — but some, by the boom of the neighborhood JO RURAL CHRISTENDOM. bringing more people, will mature into churches, and in the same community several churches. There is rich opportunity for Christian organiza- tion but it must have regard to the peculiar ob- stacles and diificulties of the rural situation, the unique advantages for spiritual work it affords, the creation of Christian homes and the civic spirit, and then co-operate with them. Our prob- lem is how to achieve such organization and results, but it is a problem largely on the way to solution by notably successful sections of Amer- ican country life. CHAPTER IV. THE TOWN PROBLEM. The town* with clearly defined rural condi- tions contains probably from five hundred to five thousand people. Some larger towns or small cities remote from the influence of a metropolis or great city maintain country characteristics up to ten or fifteen thousand people and even beyond. The United States Census marks off places as cities at 8,000 population and over, but some States like Massachusetts and Ohio wisely incor- porate with city charter at a 5,000 minimum, and below that in Ohio. These small cities, however, are no less rural communities in every respect. We will do well to call a place rural at five thousand down and allow for the few exceptions above that number. There are probably nearly ten thousand such towns in America containing * Throughout this book we use the word " town ' as signify- ing such a collection of houses whether incorporated as village or city, or unincorporated. In some States the word "town" is popularly used to designate a township which is a subdivision of a county. It seems better uniformly to call that subdivision of county a township, the hamlet a town. SI 52 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. twelve millions of people. If these towns can be made powerful centers of Christianizing in- fluences they will go far toward curing our na- tional ills. These towns send their best brains into the cities and if they always sent mature Christian characters what a spiritual and moral quickening would come to the outworn, pre- maturely decaying life of great cities ! The work of pastors and Christian teachers in the town may often be discouraging, but probably it is the farthest reaching in the world to-day. The town as a field for Christian effort has undoubtedly many perplexing difficulties. We will not underestimate them in our survey now, though, as might be expected, Christian workers there often exaggerate them and are unduly dis- couraged, I. The temptations to social frivolities are among the chief obstacles to Christian work in the town. The lack of exacting business activ- ities and of great intellectual movements and associations on the one hand, and the always struggling church become burdensome and un- attractive, leaves a free field for social leaders: and they exhibit a diligence worthy of the best cause. All through the Fall and Winter there are rounds of euchre parties, whist parties, recep- tions, dances, and family entertainments. These are topics of unending small talk and engender the demoralizing gossip, jealousies, envies and heart-burnings always following social dissipa- THE RURAL SITUATION. S3 tlon. The grip of these petty pleasures upon the popular mind is too strong for announcement of revival meetings to bring many outsiders, and even church members have the parties during the meetings ; lectures of the best sort for culture and inspiration are deserted ; even the church festival is leading a precarious existence, and movements for the young people's better activities seem hopeless. Ordinary church work which simply preaches regulation sermons on Sunday, holds an old time Sunday-school, and a dreary mid-week prayer* meeting is unable to cope with the social swirl. Announcing revival meetings formerly would set the town astir and bring the crowds, but one can go to many now and not find an unsaved per- son present. And unless the meetings have been given special preparation, unusually good singing provided, and supported by a systematic personal work and with fine advertising, the " parties " will have more people than the meetings. But there are modern churches in some of these towns which have learned how to capture even the social forces. 2. An almost paralyzing difficulty is the re- moval to cities of the best young men and some of the best young women of town churches. The pastor may train some fine leaders but about the time they become helpful, the call of the city is irresistible. They go and no man quite as able or popular now remains. What can be 54 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. done ? What is the use ? Well, it should be com- forting to the pastor, for love of the Kingdom of Christ far larger than any church, to know that he has sent splendid reenforcement to the strug- gling city church, and before he leaves the young man he should see to placing him in the largest opportunity in the city. This pastor can follow him by letter, if not by visit, to a brother pastor and secure the best introduction to church work for him. In the final award there will doubtless come rich rewards to many an un- known country pastor for the splendid achieve- ments of some great city churches. So did that wonderful little Sunday-school in Connecticut, never more than fifty enrollment, whose superin- tendent, Henry P. Haven, it was, that Dr. Trum- bull called the " Model Superintendent," send to the world more than forty notable College Presi- dents, missionaries, pastors and Christian lay- men of national prominence; so have the very flower of American men of letters, of Christian statesmen, reformers, and Church leaders been trained in the small town. But the pastor may discover others to train and send forth. That same small town holds probably a score of young boys of equally great promise. 3. Then there is the lack of higher ideals of life which with all its sins and follies the city holds, and the lack of city inspirations to act- ivity. These are difficulties which too often are THE RURAL SITUATION. 55 chronic in the Church itself. The leaders have lost lofty standards and intense life in the Church if they ever had thjem. They have lost the first essentials to forward movements. 4. The general decadence of many American towns is a terrible fact. They are dying at the top, in nobler morals, in Church influence, in potent public sentiment and examples of ag- gressively good men and women. The laxity of law enforcement against vices and petty crimes results in weakening public moral -sentiment. It springs from flabby public character and it re- acts to render it worse. There is consequently a deplorable amount of social immorality almost open and unrebuked. The " kept woman " is well known and the man who supports her bet- ter than his lawful wife, though he yet lives with the latter, is readily pointed out, for there are several of his beastly tribe in many a town. These men are not socially ostracized and they freely talk about their " woman," as in an instance which occurred while this page was being writ- ten. In one town the chief citizen in authority was known as such a social leper but elected and re-elected to his office. Both these towns are in an older State and have fairly good churches but only doing humdrum work. In many towns there are well-known married women who re- ceive other men, and one church had a vile wo- man who gave socials and put corrupting books into young people's hands. These things are pub- 56 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. lie gossip but the church seldom has moral force enough to expel these people or even se- riously to disturb them in their sins. There is very little indignation against them. At times these evils break out in a hideous murder. But still the parents are very lax in guarding their daughters in these towns. At the railroad station when the trains arrive and at village corners a wild set of girls from four- teen to twenty years of age are a common sight. Late at night they are still roaming the streets and young men take liberties with them that are rude and demoralizing. A pious priest hotly ex- horted his people on the subject, " You will not go to bed without making sure that your cow is in the stall but your daughters are in the streets until midnight while you sleep unconcernedly." But there was no improvement even after such a sermon. 5. The destruction of the former small in- dustries of many thriving towns by great " trusts " is a serious loss in far more than its fi- nancial crippling. It has driven out the intelligent mechanic, who is usually there the best man in the local church. Other factories, fortunately, are coming, like canning, silk manufactories, shirts, box and basket making, and minor articles. These require some skilled labor but do not fill the place of the wood-working and iron-work- ing shops closed. And tliese new factories em- ploy girls and women and bring the perils of THE RURAL SITUATION. 57 child labor. Yet this may be guarded, and the great advantage which the city stir of activity gives, more than compensates for the new diffi- culties of the situation. In New England the fac- tory has brought the French family from Canada with its religion, and other foreign races and these present special problems. But all this is better than the dry rot of the town deserted by me- chanics and men of ability. Christian citizens for every moral and economic reason should en- courage industries and then cultivate a public sentiment that will keep them morally clean. 6. Another serious difficulty in Christian work in the town is the crowding of weak churches and church organizations. The larger population now more accessible even of the small town, has tempted denomination after denomination to build a church. And all are weak, and this is what makes this crowding a calamity. Not half the town is reached by all the churches and they struggle with debts and financial chaos, resort- ing to humiliating begging and demoralizing en- terprises. The pastors are underpaid and for months •'unpaid. Their self-respect is weakened and their influence and spirit broken. The very mention of the church becomes painful and griev- ously burdensome. Bishop Cranston of the Methodist Episcopal Church tells of a village in the West of about eight hundred people with thirteen churches! A woman was converted in one of the churches there, and the good pastor jg RURAL CHRISTENDOM. said in his hearty way of congratulating her, " Now, Mrs. S., you are happily a Christian and your first duty is to join one of the churches in this town. We shall be glad to welcome you to the fellowship of the church in which you found Christ but I would not unduly urge you to join. You shall be free to go into the church of your choice and conscientious convictions." Between the joyful tears on her face the good woman re- plied, " The church which I want to join is not numbered among the churches of this town." This is an extreme crowding but it is easy to find many towns of one thousand people in which there are five churches. In a town of less than two thousand, of which the writer knows inti- mately, there were six churches and an actual enumeration by all the pastors showed less than six hundred members in all of them, and about six hundred and fifty in all the Sunday-schools, leaving about fourteen hundred unreached even by Christmas time enrollment. The crowding and the neglect go together. The narrowly circumscribed pastor has a horror of being called a proselyter, and the " world " has the largest number, visited by no church official nor any organized effort. The Federation of the Churches of Christ in America, a newly or- ganized and officially representative body of all denominations, is now courageously facing this condition of things so hurtful to the Kingdom of Christ, especially when the newer states have so THE RURAL SITUATION. 55 many towns with no church at all. There is hope for the pastor with no elbow room in his tiny parish. These difficulties summed up are formidable but by no means unconquerable. Many instances of better towns show the way out. Let us turn to the bright side and measure the advantages for Christian work in the town. 1. The town has the advantage of some civic organization of government. In this is a great gain over the cross-roads village and farm region. There is some law enforcement against crimes and a somewhat higher standard of morality. There is protection from fire and petty thieving. But towns should develop their local government more effectively so that a policeman is within call day or night, rowdyism on the streets im- possible, and real protection given against bur- glars and personal assault. 2. The larger accessible population gives the greater opportunity. The members of town churches are nearer to their houses of worship than is possible even in cities, and good roads open the way for a larger number of meetings and closer fellowship. The town church has the small territory, all the forces at hand, and may cultivate intensively and richly. 3. Better schools and some public libraries bring larger foundations for Christian work. Every increase of general intelligence clears away some obstacles and should stir the church 6o RURAL CHRISTENDOM. to meet it with broader plans, better services, and richer helpfulness in every way. 4. Better homes exist than the farm-houses, and there is higher culture and refinement. These invite plans for Christian hospitality, Associa- tions like the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, literary and debating clubs, and elevating social gatherings. 5. The peculiar temptations of the farm due to loneliness and exciting sights are not in the town and the great temptations of the city are unknown. What a field for aggressive plowing and sowing and cultivating in Christ's name ! We may now fairly balance advantages and difficulties in the town, and justly realize the great encouragement that remains. But there must be the modern spirit for adequate organiz- ation, bold ventures, and self-sacrificing efforts. We cannot win with stage coaches, tallow candles, and ox teams in church movements when all business goes by steam, electricity, and soon by flying machines. Usually the best place to begin the new life of the town is in repairing, modernizing, and beautifying the church building, or in wisely erecting a fine new one.* If this is financially impossible for the time, there is still much phys- ical renovating possible at trifling expense and gratuitous labor usually to be had in a town. • See Section III. for many instances and further sugges- tions for the country church. THE RURAL SITUATION. 6t But too much dependence may be placed upon the attractive power of a new building. It must be simply the inauguration of a new attractive- ness of spiritual, intellectual, moral, and social service for all the people. In many a magnificent structure lies a dead church, and a grand tomb soon ceases to draw living men. But both the beautiful temple and the still more beautiful spiritual organization may go together in ever widening power. CHAPTER V. TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF SPECIAL CHARACTER. The typical country town* is modified in some cases by special features, better or worse, than the ordinary. These features present new con- ditions which the people of these towns should clearly differentiate, though in general character- istics these special towns are very similar to all others we have described. Let us not fall into the easy snare of thinking any particular field strangely peculiar in its difficulties. The county seat, the factory town, the railroad town, the mining town, the fishing or sailor vil- lage, and the college or seminary town are the special types we may find in large numbers in the aggregate throughout America. The likenesses of towns generally are greater and more numerous than the differences. And it is a wise philosophy which begins by studying points of similarity whether we seek to measure men or things. All men are alike in many par- • See note, Chap. IV. By " town " we mean the hamlet or village but larger in size, not the township, 6a THE RURAL SITUATION. 63 ticulars. Even so angular and peculiar a char- acter as Abraham Lincoln is like millions in be- ing of Anglo-Saxon descent, in being a true American, a Westerner, a Christian politician, lawyer, and patriot, a home educated man. Even in his supposed eccentricities of loving a humor- ous story, of tender-heartedness, keen wit in repartee, he is one of multitudes. We can best understand him in his individuality after we see the many things in which he was one of a large type. So the factory town or the college town and the others have the same simplicity of life, the greater prominence of the church as a social center, the lack of city intensity and strenuous- ness of activity, and even in college towns the lack of some of the high ideals which compen- sate in cities for so much that is disheartening. College towns, however, stand in the best class of fields for aggressive Christian work. The perplexities of the ordinary town problem are also here. The vices and sins, the flow of gossip, the weakness of church influence, and the other limitations we have mentioned are in these towns also. Let us see, then, what is specially of importance to provide for in Chris- tianizing. I. The county seat town in the larger states is usually a busy center of population. Where the saloon still reigns, criminal court is fre- quently convened and thither flock the politicians, the criminal classes, and the bad women, several 64 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. times a year for a week or two. There is an atmosphere of sensational life constantly felt and a stimulated business activity. But the church there may share in this intenser life unless the pastor yields to the desire of some of his men- to be free during court sessions from church meet- ings to pursue gain unhindered. It is really the church's opportunity as many fine pastors have shown. The sensational stir is better than steady decadence or deadening slowness. If the churches in these county seats were aggressive and met the visitors with attractive religious services, open church, and personal work as busi- ness houses meet them with newly-decorated stores, new goods, and specially drawing bar- gains, the churches would accomplish splendid results from what are often regarded as unfav- orable conditions. 2. The small factory town in many sections, except New England, still has an almost solid American or American^born population.* The factory is often under the wise management of a conscientious employer whose regulations and oversight prevent vice and provide helpful en- vironment. The stir of machinery is a stimulus to young and old, and where the saloon has gone, some of these manufacturing towns and villages are ideal fields for best Christian work. In • This is ciianged in cities. The factory village or hamlet is also receiving some immigrants but the proportion is yet amall. THE RURAL SITUATION. 65 many instances too, a vigorous church is ready for the opportunity at least in part. But it is well known that in other factory towns the con- ditions are especially bad because of lax or even wicked management of the establishment, be- cause of the saloon, loose home restraints, and the unclean streets at night. Yet here the church could triumph if vigorously led and organized. Good Christians as citizens could reform the town and then the church might follow with a mighty revival. The very magnitude of the ob- stacles should concentrate spiritual forces and the wickedness of the people stimulate every effort to save them. Careful students* of our changing conditions are reasoning that factories will return in large numbers to the small city, the town and hamlet. The rents and rapidly , growing value of the larger city lots enormously increase expenses in these cities for all factory purposes, while the better sanitary conditions and more modern buildings possible in towns, the somewhat lower wages paid, and the freedom from dominating labor unions have attracted many capitalists to the town. It is common observation that in the older states these towns are recently crowd- ing with many kinds of manufacturing plants large and small. It seems plausible that this trend will grow in a self-regulating way to develop many towns moderately or to a size still retaining * Wilbert L. Anderson in " The Country Town." 66 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. the favorable conditions, instead of congesting a few to become cities. The rural factory town, therefore, will become a large element in the country situation for the Christian leader and moral reformer to consider. It is fortunate that state laws on factory inspection are becoming more effective and practical ; that child labor bids fair to be under wiser and more humane regula- tions in th? near future, because of the agitation upon that subject and the tender national con- science upon it being developed; and that the " welfare " movement among capitalists them- selves showing its financial value as well as the moral benefits of large interest in the employees' well-being, insures better conditions in these town industries. The growing factory town will be a large expansion of field to many struggling churches, solving in many cases the problem of overcrowding towns with too many churches, and will stimulate all the activities of many such places long in decadent condition. 3. The railroad town is another well-known type but it has been steadily improving in moral character under various general movements. The Young Men's Christian Associations for railroad men have everywhere brought many railroaders to Christ and wisely provided for their leisure, as well as strengthened their hands in personal work for their fellows; Industrial Brotherhoods among them, like the Brotherhood of Locomo- tive Engineers, of Railroad Conductors, and of THE RURAL SITUATION. 67 other classes of employees, have been led by earnest Christians, like the late P. M. Arthur, as Executives and have notably succeeded in ele- vating the moral character of the men ; the stricter regulations of the Railroad companies concerning drink and immorality have had their effect. The churches in which these men, whose daily life is so full of peril and hardship, whose work re- quires so steady nerve and quick initiative and endurance, are among the leading members, are the best of country churches. They are generous in giving, trained by their work to be prompt and thorough, and living in constant danger, often become men of simple trust, in God. They are unusually good material out of which to build a powerful church. On the other hand their Sun- day work takes them away from the church when most needed and renders their work in the serv- ices uncertain. And there are still large num- bers of railroaders unreached by gospel influences and whose love of excitement tempts them to excesses of vice, so that railroad towns are often both commendable for church activity and fear- fully bad in immoralities. Sabbath desecration is specially demoralizing in the railroad town. 4. The mining town now has a large admix- ture of immigrants from Southeastern Europe, the Slavs, Hungarians, Bohemians, Poles, and Lithuanians. In one Pennsylvania mining town the Lithuanians rule. They elected the Mayor, the majority of the City Councils, and have a 68 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. police force of their own people. But they are no worse, probably better, than former government there. In another town where only English and German were spoken formerly it is said that a man counted thirty different languages spoken at the railroad station one day. The Penna. Bible Society requires Bibles in seventy languages and dialects to supply these regions. The small min- ing villages or " patches " are almost solidly of these people in some sections and are being con- sidered important fields by Home Mission work- ers. Here earnest Chrfctians are feeling their responsibility, learning these languages in a few splendid cases, and working hand to hand with them. It would mean a new and wonderful life for the local churches to plan for their people to undertake such personal mission work. There are other mining regions where a large number are yet Americans, in many yet a predominating American population, or the descendants of Irish, English, Welsh, and Germans, all now English speaking. The mining town is above all things excitable. It is usually rife with drunkenness though not so bad in social vices as some other towns. Churches are better than in most towns of their size and many of them doing excellent spiritual work when run intensely, for the people must have exciting activity all the time. There is no better place for an " open church, never closed " with broadened activities. The people are on the streets every night and the " never THE RURAL SITUATION. 69 closed " church has a wonderful opportunity. With a spiritual center of power and all other work co-ordinated to it, the church in a mining town would have crowds and a continuous in- gathering. 5. The fishing village or town of the men of the sea has its peculiar difficulties, hard to un- derstand by people who have never lived there. There are many idle days when no boat can go out to fish and no place has then such absolute idleness. The men and boys lounge and sleep all day. The uncertainty of returns from their work is a financial confusion. Sometimes they receive large money compensation and at other times for considerable periods next to nothing, and this leads to swinging from extravagance to pinching need. It makes it risky to plan for the church or the home. Their work, however, develops courage and boldness, patience and sym- pathy in losses and sufferings of others. We know some churches of spiritual power in fish- ing and oyster towns, and others as dead as the lazily flapping sail on the boat in midsummer calm. Christ found in fishermen like John, James, and Peter apostles of power and the sea still develops such splendid types of character when one with Christlike spirit knows how to discover, train and place them. 6. The college or seminary town, when the in- stitution of learning in it is under religious in- 70 KURAL CHRISTENDOM. fluences, is specially favored. The fine oppor- tunity to educate young people in the classics while in home environment is itself beyond price. Many are induced by the presence of the college, to pursue extended courses who would not, or think they could not, leave home to do it. It is a general awakener and mighty stimulus to higher life in every way. The atmosphere of re- finement and culture created is helpful. The presence of the college faculty gives an intel- lectual tone to social life. The churches secure better equipped pastors necessarily and the sing- ing and worship are enriched. A few strong men in the local church in some cases frown upon unusual attention given to students, making a perplexing problem to the pastor but these are probably exceptional. These towns are among the first to drive out the saloon and are ideal places for the training of children. The oppor- tunity of the church is of that higher sort which means intensive culture, the presentation of loft- iest ideals of life, and of the noblest things of Christlike character. There may be trained great leaders for the church. All these special types of town are yet dis- tinctively rural. Life is simple, freer in social intercourse, and not over-crowded. The church can accomplish far more than in cities with the same effort and money. Civic reforms are attainable which in cities THE RURAL SITUATION. 71 would have no chance of victory. Home life, sweet and strong, is there. The town must be arrested in its spiritual and moral decay, and may be started upward into large realization of the Kingdom of God. CHAPTER VI. THE RURAL SUBURB. Blessed is that suburb which finds as it be- gins expanding, an aggressive and spiritual church in the midst. By its shepherding of the new families as they come, they are deeply in- fluenced or captured, and the character of a suburb has actually been made Christian by one such church. The story is an inspiration to others to do likewise. There are suburbs, so called, with manufactur- ing and other industries whose population and characteristics are the same as those of factory towns. Proximity to a great city gives the ad- ditional advantage of city inspiration to some ex- tent and some influence from city ideals. But otherwise the religious and moral conditions are those of the town we have just been discifssing. In reality such " suburbs " are large towns near a city, and their people not only sleep and eat evening dinners there, but live there altogether and have their daily work and all other inter- ests in the place. •n THE RURAL SITUA TION. n The other kind of suburb, which must be dis- tinguished from the town, is purely a residence community, usually of the salaried people of a city or of its business men. For the men it is, during the week, simply the sleeping place and the place for good evening dinners, and on Sun- day the place to which they immediately return, as many of the residents do, from a morning church service in the city. Or, more justly, on the whole in every way it is the place of their comfortable, attractive, and restful homes. There are grave religious perils in the resi- dential suburb. With most of these the pastor and Christian people are only too deeply im- pressed for they are despairing about them, but they usually overlook some of the obstacles even greater. I. There is the danger of satisfaction with a fine church building and a good Sunday morning service. The structures for worship in suburbs are usually handsome as they ought to be with the wealth of the residents and the character of their own homes. The people point with pride to them and often wonder what more is neces- sary. And if they have, besides, a fairly good preacher for Sunday morning service what more could be expected of them ? " To go to an even- ing service? And to prayer-meeting and a lot of other services during the week ? " Well, they came out to the country to rest, and the neigh- borhood is made up of good people, and they 74 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. have been attending church services all their life! The good men and women, however, who would reduce their children, by their own non- attendance, to only one really inspiring service a week, and to so small spiritual culture, forget that they themselves did not become the matured Christians they are, loving Christ's Church, on one religious service in early life. They tell you of two lengthy sermons and worship, of two sessions of the Sunday-school, of an attractive mid-week service, of religious homes with in- struction and worship, and of personal devo- tional habits of Bible reading and daily prayer. In New England in the colonial days the old church was town hall, school, library, social cen- ter and church in one.* They assembled Sunday morning with practically every man, woman, and child present at nine o'clock to have an all com- prehensive prayer earnest and long, a sermon of more than an hour, then cold lunch and a second sermon of sometimes two hours. But that discip- line and teaching gave Massachusetts hundreds of famous men of ripest character and scholar- ship to a few score from five other states under " modern " church life. Why should these sub- urban Christian parents expect their children to grow great in character on one small service a week and no home religion? Are they ready to * Dr. Hillis, in " Man's Value to Society." He judges by prominence in Encyclopedias. THE RURAL SITUATION. 7S forfeit all matured Christian habits and deep spiritual life of their children to indulge in home lounging which they call rest? And then in later life have those children by their godless- ness and selfishness fearfully break into the rest, the aged parents will then desire so much more? By all the gratitude Christian parents feel for their early religious life they ought to furnish what is just as good for their children. 2. This danger is general of making the suburb chiefly the place of absolute inactivity and of evening and Sunday dinners prolonged beyond reason. That very home, sweet home,, is the creation of the church, and it cannot long be sweet or restful when the church loses its vigorous spiritual life or the home is sep- arated from it. This cannot too often be said. Home will be enjoyed all the more if its pleas- ures are adjusted to real activity in a broad and stirring church work in the suburb. Lounging in absolute inactivity is not real recuperation to a normal mind. It is itself wearisome and after a while intolerable, and so in these people who plead for exemption from Christian work that they may rest at home, we see the strangely in- consistent development of extended and exciting Sunday dissipation, and long hours of absence from the home on tiresome rides and visits. They cannot stay all the time in their homes with sat- isfaction to their active natures. There are splendid Christian people, on the 76 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. other hand, who have learned that the need of fellowship for highest joy, and of usefulness to others, is met exactly and fully by a larger church activity, and then the home becomes sweetest of all and continues so to the end of life. 3. The danger of continuing to hold church membership in the distant city. This is a most perplexing problem for really fair and discrim- inating study. The city church in many cases sorely needs the attendance, the financial support, and service to the extent he can render, of the wealthy suburbanite. Lifelong associations of the most tender sort bind him to that church, and if he is past middle life he hesitates to break these, knowing the difficulty of forming new associations. He hopes to attach his children as firmly as himself by regular Sunday morning de- votion to the city church. But that church is rapidly changing in spite of every effort to hold all its people, and the children as a matter of fact are not acquiring their parents' love for it. The children attend Sunday-school in the suburban church and Sunday night service there. The discerning Christian father will decide that he must join that church for the sake of his children, and some of them are wise indeed to conclude further that they must throw themselves into that church with all their experience and ability as Christian workers. Many Christian parents are not so observant nor so prompt in doing the THE RURAL SITUATION. 77 safe thing for their homes and future, and they relapse into irregularity in all church-going and into loss of real interest in either place. They cannot work efficiently in the distant city church and they excuse themselves because of member- ship in' the city from any important work in the country. Multitudes of able men and women, whom the Kingdom of Christ cannot spare, thus have discharged themselves early in life. It is a grave peril for all concerned, to the city church lest by selfishly holding on to men whom it can- not help nor use, that church forfeits the blessing of God, to the country church, and most of all to the man himself. 4. The danger grows if the churchman in the suburbs keeps all his other interests in the city — if he goes to the city for all intellectual associsf- tions, for social entertainment, and for his friendships. Of course he must necessarily look there for the best for a long time to come. But there is every good reason, and every selfish one, for beginning to plan some intellectual re- sources in his neighborhood, and for forming such friendships as may be. Otherwise there will be for him no neighborliness and no com- munity interest. The isolation of families on crowded city streets and avenues with constantly changing tenants, may be unavoidable in large measure, but to carry it into the permanent settle- ments of the open country is unchristian and silly pride. Intimate friendships are not formed in a 78 RURAL CHRISTENDOM. day and may be left to slow growth but a kind neighborliness is possible at once to be cultivated. It costs nothing and it blesses those who give and those who receive. 5. There is lastly the danger of extremes of riches and poverty. The retinue of servants and serving men about the suburban mansion form a class distinct from the family. The master and servants, the lady and her maid, in many cases go to the same church and introduce social caste thei-e. It is a perplexing problem to be solved only by spiritually intensifying church activity and Christlike love. Now after this assuredly full exhibit of the difficulties let us look as fairly at the advantages for Christian work in the suburban church. 1. The church is more important relatively than in the city. It is the only public building and its bell the only sound that breaks the Sab- bath-like quiet during the week and wakens sweet memories on Sunday. This ^ives the church a great opportunity. 2. Fellowship between the churches in a suburb is usually close and genuine. The pastors in many cases are intimate chums and their con- gregations fuse easily and strongly for general town enterprises. This gives civic and commun- ity opportunity of a commanding character. 3. There are more fully equipped pastors than in the towns. Larger salaries are paid, a thor- oughly educated ministry is demanded and se- THE RURAL SITUATION.