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MEADVILLE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 
 
 QUARTERLY BULLETIN 
 
 VOLUME IV JULY, 1910 NO. 4 
 
 l/U 
 
 H \AJj\oJL 
 
 ■JLrz* 
 
 PRESIDENT'S REPORT. 
 COMMENCEMENT WEEK. 
 CLASS SONG. 
 , IN MEMORIAM— GEORGE LOVELL CARY v 
 
 CADIN BALLOU LECTURE. ) 
 
 Rev. Joseph N. Pakder ^/ 
 
 INSTITUTE FOR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 
 
 Entered as Second-class Matter December 15, 1906, at the 
 
 Post Office at Meadville, Pa., under the Act 
 
 of Congress of July 16, 1894, 
 
 XXSRAJTY of the 
 
 ^Massachusetts 
 
 JUL19 1910 
 
 -A-gricmltural 
 C^Ilegir 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE MEADVILLE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 
 
 MEADVILLE, PA. 
 
THE MINISTRY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES. 
 By J. N. Pardee. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Nixon Carver, Professor of Economics in Har- 
 vard University, and President of the New England Country 
 Church Association, approaching the subject from the view-point 
 of an economist, assumes that if the country districts are to be- 
 come Christian, it will be because Christians are the best farmers. 
 "Therefore it behooves the rural churches to see to it that their 
 members are made better farmers by the fact of membership." 
 Agreeing with him perfectly, I assume that the important work 
 of the country minister lies in making the population Christian; 
 and, if the country is to become pagan, because pagans are the 
 best farmers, it will be because of a lack of Christian ministers of 
 the right kind. But, one of the most hopeful features of the 
 interest in rural progress is the newly awakened concern in 
 nearly all of our theological schools ; their readiness to co-operate 
 with the agricultural colleges, and with all other helpful forces, 
 and their appeal to the heroism of their young men to turn their 
 attention countryward and train themselves for service in neg- 
 lected fields. (As large opportunities for self-sacrifice exist in 
 America, as in India or China.) This matter should appeal also 
 to the practical mind, for, as half of our population lives in the 
 country, half of the students must drift to the country or go 
 without professional employment. 
 
 By way of prelude, it may be said that the things that count 
 for most in the ministry, in country and in city, are certain inde- 
 finable qualities of personality, — insight, faith, conviction and 
 consecration. Training and equipment are of value as tools; 
 they are a kind of art, not for Art's sake, but for Life's sake. 
 
 The minister is accepted by the people today, not so much for 
 his gown and bands, or the way he buttons his collar; not so 
 much for his scholarship', his eloquence, or his felicity in prayer, 
 though these things count, as for his manhood, his manners 
 among men, his ability to do things, and, above all, for his 
 unselfishness and his consecration to divine and human ideals. If 
 there is a growing paganism in the country, which I doubt, the 
 country pagan wants the minister to be a Christian, in the 
 broadest and most practical sense of the term,. 
 
 Now we are receiving a good deal of advice about the train- 
 
 15 
 
ing of ministers for the rural ministry, with Jean Frederick 
 Oberlin held up as an ideal. But the relation of the minister to 
 an agricultural population has undergone many changes since 
 earlier times. European agriculture srrew out of the monasteries, 
 and the monks were the teachers and pioneers. Oberlin found 
 conditions in the Ban de la Roche desperate, and he revolution- 
 ized them. The Puritan parsons of New England were leaders 
 in the tillage of the soil; but, in our day of specialization, other 
 leaders and other forces have taken the leadership. We need 
 Oberlin's sagacity, pluck, patience, persistence, endurance, tact 
 and sympathy, and his liberality, but there is less call for us to 
 do the kind of work Oberlin did. 
 
 The agricultural colleges and experiment stations, the Depart- 
 ments of Agriculture, state and national, are in close touch with 
 the farms. Farmers' Institutes are multiplying; Granges are 
 active; a very able agricultural press sends its publications into 
 almost every rural household; the "Good Roads" movement is 
 everywhere a live issue ; the study of agriculture in the public 
 schools is spreading ; co-operation is growing ; farmers pay taxes 
 for public schools willingly, and are calling for the best teachers. 
 If there is any place where Oberlins are needed, it is in the South, 
 where Rev. W. S. Key is doing such a work; but of the South 
 I know too little to speak with authority. 
 
 I do not believe that the institutional church is practicable, if 
 it is desirable, in most country districts, at least under present 
 conditions. It is better to draw a pretty clear line between the 
 interests of the church and the interests of the town, and to take 
 up each kind of work independently of every other kind. Let 
 each interest have its own special organization. But we do need 
 somebody to lead in such work as the Y. M. C. A. is doing in 
 athletics, lectures, classes, and in directing the energies of the 
 young into wholesome channels. The man who' is fitted for this 
 work will find enough to' do. 
 
 In many of our rural communities the minister is often the 
 only educated man of leisure, the only man competent to lead; 
 and in such cases the more he really knows about all sorts of 
 things, the better it is for the community, if he has tact enough 
 to use what he knows in practical and judicious ways. 
 
 The actual conditions call for educated men. The city church 
 can get along with eloquence, manners, style. The dilletante 
 minister may find a place in some city pulpit, but the country 
 demands men who know something. The country minister ought 
 to be reasonably well read in the sciences, and know how to 
 think, and know how to meet men ; and all this I say without 
 slighting his theological training and his Biblical criticism. He 
 
 16 
 
ought to know something more than superficially about the indus- 
 try on which the life of his people is based. Not that he is to be 
 a teacher of agriculture, or rural economics; but because that 
 knowledge is the open highway to a profound sympathy with the 
 ideals, the struggles, trials, hopes and ambitions of the people to 
 whom he ministers, and to an insight into their mental processes 
 and their moral tone. This is the foundation theory of the 
 Summer School for Country Clergymen that is held at the Agri- 
 cultural College of Massachusetts, at Amherst. And for this 
 reason a course at an Agricultural College is an extremely valu- 
 able supplement to a theological course. 
 
 But the young man who looks countryward for his field should 
 never forget that the primary work of the Christian minister, in 
 the country as well as in the city, is to call the attention of men, 
 women and children to the Eternal Realities ; to translate the 
 terms of a sane, vital philosophy of the Universe into the terms of 
 the common thought and life; ;to find in high thoughts of the 
 moral government of God motives for the conduct of human 
 beings in their relations to one another; to stimulate high ambi- 
 tions, clarify thought, widen knowledge, give hope in discourage- 
 ment, and soothe the sorrows of the afflicted. To enable him to 
 do this in the most effective way, all is fish that comes to his net ; 
 but how far he shall go to fish in other than religious waters 
 depends upon the circumstances of his environment, and the 
 character of his tackle. 
 
 I would not put too much emphasis upon an all-round equip- 
 ment, however. Some of our most successful, most inspiring, 
 most helpful country ministers, who have moulded the character 
 of rising generations have been saintly men who knew nothing 
 about common affairs, and could handle no tool heavier than a 
 pen ; but they were men who knew much about the deep things 
 of God, and the aspirations of the human soul ; men of high 
 scholarship, profound thought and of spiritual vision; men who 
 loved the people and whom the people loved. 
 
 The first coign of vantage the minister is to occupy is the 
 pulpit. It is here that the candidate is "sized up." It is here 
 that his intellectual and spiritual measure is taken. He is "called" 
 almost exclusively upon his character and quality as a preacher; 
 and the keenest, shrewdest critics he will ever face he stands 
 before in the country pulpits. It is from the pulpit that he wields 
 his greatest influence. Country congregations, as a rule, will 
 forgive neglect and short-comings in all other departments of 
 his work sooner than failures in the pulpit. They will go into 
 their pockets far deeper for a good preacher than for a good 
 social worker, teacher of civics, organizer of clubs, or even for a 
 
 17 
 
good pastor, though all these things are highly appreciated. 
 What we call "worship" or devotional service, is, often, in the 
 rural mind, a secondary consideration ; possibly because it has 
 been neglected. (For this reason the Episcopal Church has not 
 flourished in the country.) 
 
 I want to make this point clear because there has been, and 
 still is, an impression abroad that almost any kind of preaching 
 will "go" in the country. Poor preaching does go; many cheap 
 things go for the simple reason that the people of a poor church 
 feel their inability to pay for anything better; but the man who 
 lets himself down from his very best, through a vain impression 
 that his audience does not know a good thing when it sees it, 01 
 hears it, be he preacher, lecturer, singer or entertainer, makes 
 the mistake of his life. In the city you may find more brilliant 
 audiences, more cultivated audiences, because in the city you 
 are likely to have picked audiences ; but in the democracy of the 
 country the stranger who looks into unemotional faces, reserved 
 and self-contained, often fails to appreciate the shrewd intelli- 
 gence, the general knowledge of men and affairs, the keen ability 
 to detect sophistry in reasoning, that actually characterize a nor- 
 mal country congregation. A|nd, the further back you go into 
 pioneer regions, the more really educated men and women are 
 you likely to meet, though they may not be regular church 
 goers. 
 
 I know how summer visitors bring back to the city many 
 stories of rural stupidity ; but summer visitors, like the novelists, 
 are apt to generalize from incidental cases, and to look through 
 glasses colored by their own abnormal aestheticism. I have my- 
 self probably preached and lectured in as great a variety of 
 places — churches, school houses, halls, from the wild woods of 
 Maine to the prairies of Iowa, — as any man of my age; and I 
 have yet to find a rural audience that would not average up in 
 general intelligence, and breadth of information to the "swell" 
 clubs I sometimes have the privilege of banqueting with in the 
 large cities. 
 
 The rural mind is essentially a serious mind, and is given to 
 thoughtful reflection. It is a philosophical mind. The natural 
 environment, the call to deal with natural phenomena in forest 
 and field stimulates the imagination to trace out lines of cause 
 and effect. You never hear of a country gathering being stam- 
 peded by fright, or of its rushing out of doors in a panic. Let the 
 cry of fire run through a crowded church, and the men will 
 quietly go out to see what the matter is, while the women begin to 
 gather up the hymn books and the cushions. The whole training, 
 from that of the baby wandering in the fields, the ten-year-old 
 
 18 
 
going off alone with a team, to the management of a farm, 
 teaches self-reliance. Country people are no more easily stam- 
 peded by flaming eloquence or burning periods of rhetorical pas- 
 sion. 
 
 Rural industry allows time for thought, even to the making 
 of individual theologies; and the rural theologian is quite apt to 
 put the theologian of the schools upon his mettle. May the good 
 Lord deliver you from such unequal contests of wit ! 
 
 In the country one finds the keenest sense of humor, though 
 it is not always refined. Rural humor is born of the habit of 
 tracing the lines of cause and effect; and is therefore quick to 
 see the ludicrous side of abnormal relations. Possibly for this 
 reason rural congregations are seldom moved by what is known 
 as "sensational preaching." Religious revivals are hard to start 
 in the country ; and, when they are started, they usually do more 
 harm than good. I have seen a great many of them in the old 
 revivalistic, camp meeting days, and have noticed that the writhing 
 and the shouting of the wrestlers has had the effect of exciting 
 amusement, if not scoffing, on the part of the greater body of 
 lookers on. This is not because country people have not a pro- 
 found respect for religion, but because the rural mind is essen- 
 tially rationalistic. It is its habit to reason things out, crude 
 though much of its reasoning may be. Country juries seldom 
 render illogical verdicts. 
 
 In many ways the average country audience is deceiving. 
 Reserved and modest, with a kindly tolerance for crudities and 
 respect for good intentions, it will stifle its humor, and pass 
 ridiculous situations by without a smile simply on account of a 
 feeling of decency ; and the deeper the impression you make, the 
 less applause will you be likely to get. 
 
 One distinction should here be made ; and that is between 
 intelligence and culture. You will find in the country little appre- 
 ciation of Art for Art's sake. What is it good for is the question. 
 Country people are born pragmatists. Artists came to our town 
 and preached aesthetics without effect. But when we proved 
 that beauty increased the value of property, the people took hold 
 and cleaned up the dooryards, laid cement walks, and painted 
 their houses. That shrewd observer, Dr. Carver, once said to me 
 that, if he were training men for city pulpits, he would put his 
 emphasis first upon pleasing manners, secondly upon rhetoric 
 and voice culture, and thirdly upon thought; but, if he were 
 trniaing them for the country, he would reverse the emphasis. 
 
 The lesson of all this for the preacher is to be as thorough 
 with his thought as he can ; as direct and simple with his state- 
 ments, driving straight forward to the heart of things along the 
 
 19 
 
road of logical common sense. Fancy rhetoric is a cumbrance; 
 sounding periods put hard-working men to sleep ; but the preach- 
 ing that takes hold on life furnishes food for thought and lights 
 up dark subjects will find as serious response in any congregation 
 that gathers from the farms and forests as it will anywhere. Still 
 it must be said that real literary finish is not lost on rural audi- 
 ences ; and no audiences are less tolerant of anything that savors 
 of boorishness, either in the pulpit or out of it. And here I 
 might say, that country congregations retain a great respect for 
 the Bible, and are appreciative of Biblical preaching; and espe- 
 cially so because they are just beginning to see the force of the 
 higher criticism. The higher criticism is an effective antidote to 
 crude rationalism. And when you go to the country to preach, 
 please do not forget to read the hymns. There is more worship 
 in a hymn well read than in its rendering, or rending by an 
 average country choir. Many people have an idea that country 
 congregations call for extemporaneous preaching. Once that 
 was true except in scholarly New England. Now a man is ex- 
 pected to do his best whichever way he choose. I have known 
 one man who wrote satisfactory sermons to lose his pulpit be- 
 cause he insisted on preaching extemporaneously, and he could 
 not do it. 
 
 I have dwc:lt upon preaching because it is a primary matter ; 
 but I would not have the inference drawn that it is the only 
 thing to be considered, in treating the place which the minister 
 holds in a rural community. The point is that, if a man can not 
 preach acceptably, he had better not seek a country pulpit. If he 
 can, then his position gives him standing, and his opportunities 
 for usefulness broaden out, and he finds his place among the 
 affairs of the community according to his ability and equipment. 
 About what the minister can do for civic betterment, I can- 
 not speak very definitely as this is such a personal matter; it 
 depends so much upon circumstances that no rule can be laid 
 down; and there is so much that must be said about his own 
 special place and office that time forbids. His work in Sunday 
 School, and with guilds and auxiliary societies is not essentially 
 different from the same work in city churches. There is little 
 for him to do in the administration of charities. The country 
 knows little of real poverty ; and the poor that we have with us 
 are taken care of by town officers, while the personal touch is 
 given by a kindly neighborliness. My own rule, formulated from 
 experience is: Keep an eye on everything; be ready for emer- 
 gencies ; but never do anything that anybody else can do as well 
 as I can. 
 
 Most writers dwell upon the close relation of the country 
 
 20 
 
minister to his people in the pastoral relation. It is assumed that 
 the country pastor comes into the most intimate personal rela- 
 tions with the members of his flock; that he knows their 
 thoughts, feelings, pains and trials. I am inclined to be very 
 doubtful of this ; and other country pastors, with whom I have 
 talked about the matter, confirm my doubts. Of all people, 
 country people are the 'hardest to become really acquainted with. 
 Rural life fosters a strong individualism. The countryman asserts 
 his own opinions freely, and is ready to argue with the minister ; 
 but when he comes to speaking of the things that touch him most 
 deeply, especially in the region of the emotions, he is shy and 
 reserved. He feels his inability to express himself in words. 
 Self-reliant, the countryman keeps his 1 pains and troubles to him- 
 self ; or, if he talks of them, he is much freer with his neighbors 
 than with his minister. Further still, his self-dependent life 
 breeds in him an element of stoicism. There are ministers who 
 have the faculty, happy or otherwise, of probing their people, or 
 of worming out confidences ; but the country pastor with human 
 delicacy probably knows as little of the troubles of his people as 
 any man in the community, and hears as little of the gossip that 
 is going about. I have my doubts about country folks having 
 many serious troubles, save when sickness invades, or death 
 blights the household. Business perplexities are rare. Poverty 
 is little known. Vice hides itself in the by-ways. On the whole, 
 life is normal and wholesome ; people are too busy to give much 
 attention to the ills of the flesh, and they sleep too soundly to be 
 troubled much by the ills of the spirit. Family differences, feuds 
 between neighbors, personal jealousies, such as we read about 
 in novels and see little of, the wise man soon concludes to' leave 
 alone; and when he strikes them on general principles in his 
 pulpit, where the blow is apt to tell most strongly, he can strike 
 most effectively if his congregation realizes that he has had no 
 personal contact with them. The preacher who knows too much 
 about the inner lives of individuals is seriously handicapped. 
 
 The country minister faces peculiar difficulties and dangers. 
 Jesus had in mind conditions essentially rural when he advised 
 his disciples to be "As wise as serpents and as harmless as doves." 
 Peculiar difficulties lie in the strong individualism that country 
 industry, isolation and self-reliance foster. Woe to the minister 
 that attempts to assert authority. Even Catholic priests have 
 realized this resistant quality of the rural mind. In the manage- 
 ment of churches this individualism, this absence of respect for 
 authority, this lack of co-operative spirit, is the most difficult 
 condition the pastor meets. 
 
 In the city church the minister deals, in the main, with trained 
 
 21 
 
business men. Business men are placed upon the standing com- 
 mittees. The trained business man has a habit of putting respon- 
 sibility upon subordinates, and of respecting the authority of su- 
 periors. He looks upon the minister much as he looks upon the 
 head of some department. As a director of a corporation, he 
 puts large powers into the hands of the President, gives him a 
 reasonably free hand, and looks to him for results. He does the 
 same with his minister. The minister is the head of the corpora- 
 tion. From him he expects results. How he is to obtain these 
 results is the minister's business. 
 
 In the working of a church corporation in the country, com- 
 posed mainly of farmers and their wives, who are not trained 
 business men, though shrewd in their own small business meth- 
 ods, the business is held in the hands of the corporation as a 
 whole. Every member wants to have his way about it; and the 
 dominating members are bound to have things their own way. 
 Personalities are apt to clash. Traditions run deep. If a church 
 is well organized, it is likely to run in grooves along established 
 lines ; if not, it is likely to fall into the hands of a few who are 
 jealous of interference. The curse of many country churches is 
 the slip-shod, unbusiness-like methods of their maintenance. 
 More country ministers fail, and lose their pulpits on these 
 accounts than on all other accounts. They are apt to make one 
 of two mistakes. The first is the mistake of holding aloof from 
 the business affairs of the church ; the other is of interfering with 
 them unwisely. One great need of the country churches, if not 
 the greatest, as men of organizing and directing ability. I see 
 no way of overcoming the inertia, the bad management, the busi- 
 ness failures that beset many of our country churches, but the 
 training of ministers in business methods, and then insisting that 
 the minister is the responsible head of the corporation. 
 
 Here I ought to say a word about the minister's official posi- 
 tion. Under the congregational theory, whatever authority the 
 minister has is derived from the congregation ; or from the cor- 
 poration. But in the absence of any specific rule made by the 
 corporation, the corporation centers in him. He can do the same 
 things that the corporation can do. By usage and custom he is 
 given control of the pulpit, and other business is put into' the 
 hands of other officers. But it is a prerogative of bis office to' 
 exercise advisory oversight upon the other officers, and to call 
 them to account if they neglect the duties of their offices. In 
 New England most religious societies are corporations. Where 
 they are not incorporated, the title to property and the business 
 management are vested in boards of trustees. These boards are 
 responsible, not to the congregation, but to the state. All the 
 
 22 
 
power the congregation has over them is the power of election. 
 The minister, however, is not beholden to the trustees, except in 
 the matter of salary. He represents the congregation, and as its 
 official head properly exercises advisory functions with the trus- 
 tees. Lawyers tell me that this is good law, as well as good 
 business. I cannot go into this matter at any length, but minis- 
 ters should make a study of it and know where they stand. In 
 most cases the welfare of the church depends upon the tactful 
 way in which the minister assumes and exercises his business 
 function. The minister w*ho allows himself to be looked upon 
 merely as the hired man in the pulpit occupies an unstable po- 
 sition. 
 
 All churches are governed by the laws of the states. They 
 make their own by-laws, but the statutes are their constitutions. 
 It is surprising to find the great number of ministers and standing 
 committees who have no knowledge of the laws under which 
 their churches exist. I know a number of old churches, pros- 
 perous churches, — that have been letting things run at loose ends 
 so long that nobody knows where they stand legally, or what the 
 title to their property is. Judge Davis, of the Land Court oi 
 Massachusetts says, "The courts of this Commonwealth dread 
 nothing so much as a Church Case." And yet the statutes are 
 plain and explicit, and the decisions of the Supreme Court, from 
 the earliest times till now, have been uniform. It seems to me 
 that in the training of "ministers for the country, a course in eccle- 
 siastical law would be as valuable as a course at an agricultural 
 college. 
 
 Given a knowledge of the law ; given a working idea of busi- 
 ness methods, one word can cover all the other steps necessary 
 to put a church upon a good working basis. That word is "tact." 
 Aside from the difficulties that arise from imperfect organization, 
 great troubles sometimes come from the force of personalities. 
 Churches would hardly be human organisms if they did not 
 contain individuals who are dissatisfied with the authorities, 
 dissatisfied with the minister, or have grievances against other 
 members of the church. In a city church the minister usually 
 draws his own clientele and builds up his own machine. In the 
 country few men do it. In the city the popular preacher is 
 superior to the institution; in the country the institution is 
 superior. Of all institutions the country church has the most 
 tenacious hold. In the city disgruntled worshippers can go off 
 to some other church ; in the country they hang on to the insti- 
 tution and stay to make trouble. What is the minister to do in 
 such cases? 
 
 No perfectly satisfactory rule can be laid down that even the 
 
 23 
 
most angelic minister could make work to perfect satisfaction; 
 but, judging from a somewhat wide observation and experience, 
 my own opinion is that more ministers make a mistake in resign- 
 ing than in sticking to their posts and letting the other fellows 
 become resigned. The fact is that the man who is worth having 
 usually has a big majority on his side; and the man who counts 
 up his majority and sticks, who appears to be utterly oblivious to 
 personal dissatisfactions, and never answers back, who puts his 
 emphasis upon the work he is doing for God and humanity, who 
 looks to the good of the church rather than to his own peace of 
 mind, lives through troublous crises and wins out. Of course, 
 some short pastorates are evidences, as Beecher said at Yale, 
 of "Divine mercy to the parishes." More are evidences of hyper- 
 sensitiveness, squeamishness or bad judgment, if not of ambition 
 on the part of thin-skinned ministers. Here it is proper to put 
 in a word of general warning. The literature of the subject 
 generally lays the blame for short pastorates, and the numerous 
 ills from which they spring, to the psychology, the economics, 
 the "human cussednness" of the people who make up the body of 
 our congregations. 
 
 But this is a one-sided view of pastoral responsibilities. A 
 good many elements enter into it. Sometimes the minister is 
 wholly at fault. But it may be said in general that it is the busi- 
 ness of the man who puts on the armor of Christ to' win victories. 
 It is the business of the pastor of a church to win the people. It 
 is his business to persuade them, lead them. However intelligent 
 they may be, he is dealing with limited minds, childish person- 
 alities, ignorance, diabolism if you please. He is a foolish man if 
 he listens to all their little criticisms. Sometimes it may be 
 necessary to kindly, sweetly, gently, shake them over the bleach- 
 ing fumes of the fumigating pit ; out it is not his business to let 
 them go to the Devil. If the task is too great for him, it simply 
 proves that he is not equal to the task. He may succeed better in 
 some other place. The point I would like to emphasize is, that in 
 a country town, the influence which a minister exerts, both in and 
 out of the church, the good he does and the reward he receives, 
 are almost directly in proportion to his staying qualities. To look 
 upon a country church as a good place to develop homiletic 
 wings, for flights to some metropolis, strikes me as a kind of 
 criminal cruelty; or ignorant folly. 
 
 Furthermore, the position a minister holds in a rural com- 
 munity (as well as in the city if not more so) the influence he 
 exerts, depends less upon his intellectual ability, less upon his 
 equipment, less upon his popular gifts, his scholarship and train- 
 ing, though all of these have their high values, than upon a quiet, 
 
 24 
 
unconscious acceptance by the people. It is a bit difficult to make 
 this important point clear, and I shall have to illustrate it. For 
 example : A minister goes to a town to settle. Everybody goes 
 to church once at least to hear him. He is the latest curiosity. 
 He is pointed out as he passes by. Everybody talks about him. 
 He is invited out to tea. If he is worth being proud of, the 
 church people are proud of him. A sense of proprietorship is 
 evident. He is "our" minister. Perhaps he is criticised. Per- 
 haps he runs across the grain of somebody and some folks get 
 down on him. Then >his champions rise up and fight battles for 
 him. So time runs on until nobody takes any special notice of 
 him. Congregations settle down to a staid average. Nobody 
 invites him to tea, unless he chances to come around at tea time, 
 and then they take him in informally. Things run along like 
 clock work. Then he begins to feel that his work is done in that 
 place and he had better be moving on. 
 
 It may take six, eight or ten years to arrive at this demoraliz- 
 ing stage; but, if the minister only knew it, he has arrived at a 
 stage where he holds a secure place, and where his real power is 
 probably greater than at any previous point in his career. He 
 has been accepted by the people. He is one of them; one of the 
 citizens. His machine is in running order. Disgruntled mem- 
 bers have disappeared. Children have grown up from the Sun- 
 day School, and, if he has done his duty, are voting members of 
 the church and always ready to stand by him. The danger at 
 this point is that he will not wake up to a realizing sense of the 
 situation, and look forward to still greater activity. 
 
 Dr. Charles Carroll Everett, of blessed memory, used to 
 quote somebody as saying: "A minister should not use his influ- 
 ence until he has got it. When he has got it, he should not fail 
 to use it." To which he himself added, "The way to get it is to 
 use it." In applying this to the ministry in a country town, to 
 the minister as a man among men and a citizen, some qualifica- 
 tions are needful. 
 
 Our country towns need, above all things else, strong leader- 
 ship. The country has no lack of potential efficiency. Good 
 workers are there, if well directed ; and, once agreed upon a plan, 
 they work with little friction. Personal rivalries are rare, and 
 desire to lead is seldom evident. But leadership calls for delicacy 
 and finesse. Here is where the path of danger lies to the young 
 minister who has taken courses in sociology, studied civic ser- 
 vice, dipped into social settlement work and has a passion for 
 organization; and especially if he has studied rural sociology in 
 books, and formulated pet theories of the rural uplift. The only 
 leadership that will attract a following in the country is the kind 
 
 25 
 
that can' show the way an concrete fashion. The rural mind is 
 highly concrete, as well as self-reliant. The only teaching that 
 will have much effect is teaching by the object method. If I 
 wanted to teach the farmers how to raise better potatoes, and 
 more of them, I would say nothing about it. I would plant a 
 field by the road side, and do the talking after the crop was dug. 
 Not having a field, I would find some expert who has made good 
 and let him do> the talking. 
 
 If danger lies in unwise attempts at leadership, success often 
 lies in a method of leadership that stands behind, if such a 
 Hibernicism is allowable, and sets other people up to issue the 
 orders. Remember the rule: Keep an eye on everything; but 
 never do anything yourself that anybody else can do as well. 
 
 If I do not know how to do something that needs to' be done, 
 there is somebody somewhere who does know ; and the best thing 
 I can do is to find that person and let him have the honor of doing 
 it. Often you need not go far to find him. But if you must do 
 a thing in order to have it done, be mighty sure you can carry it 
 through to a successful termination. Failures in the country are 
 conspicuous ; and everybody knows why you failed, and country 
 folks have long memories. Just now I want the road through the 
 village oiled. If I brought the matter up in town meeting, it 
 might end in talk. I do not know just how to do it; but the 
 engineer of the Highway Commission knows how, and the Chair- 
 man of the Commission has offered me the use of one of his 
 men to show me how to do it. If it is a success in front of the 
 parsonage, it will go through the village speedily. 
 
 A great deal of trouble has been caused in country towns by 
 the desire of some new ministers to have their fingers in every 
 pie, and to pull out the plums for the glorification of their own 
 church. This officiousness is less harmful in the city, because 
 there competition is intense and people are accustomed to have 
 about everything done for them. You cannot do things for 
 country people; you can only show them how to do things for 
 themselves. The social settlement idea can not be made to work 
 in the country, if it is the least bit obvious. Even though your 
 motives are the most disinterested, you are apt to run up against 
 the feeling that you want to "run things." It causes a great deal 
 of friction, and with most people it leads to doing nothing for the 
 public benefit. A great deal of the deadness of rural communities 
 is owing to a senseless suspicion of the man who seems to want 
 to be boss. 
 
 How are you to meet this feeling? It may be well to stop 
 awhile and let things go undone, until the people see what hap- 
 pens when you hold back. But if you must do things in order 
 
 26 
 
to have them done, why, do them, but do them with certainty. 
 Count your majority. The majority will ultimately be with you, 
 if you have common sense and a habit of making good. A 
 reputation for knowing what you are about, and for succeeding 
 in your undertakings, is itself a magnet to' draw support. And 
 when you have gained that reputation, your field of usefulness, 
 as a minister, as a citizen, as a man among men, is limited only 
 by your own energy, state of health, ability and equipment. 
 Every rural field is fertile with possibilities. Resources are not 
 exhausted, they remain unworked. The greatest need I have in 
 my own little field is the need of a secretary and assistant. I 
 have to do too many things with my own hands, to spend too 
 much time on trivial matters, to go too far to do research work. 
 
 I spoke yesterday about the turn of the tide countryward. A 
 very hopeful thing for the coming minister is the attention that 
 is being given by all denominations to the matter of ministerial 
 support. The cost of living and of ministerial efficiency is rela- 
 tively higher in the country than in the city. Provisions of all 
 kinds cost quite as much. Fuel is quite expensive. A horse and 
 carriage, or an automobile, is essential. The minister who does 
 not travel and keep in touch with the outside world is in danger 
 of drying up. There are ways, however, of getting books. The 
 farming class does not realize the situation because it costs the 
 farmer comparatively little to live, and he says that the minister 
 handles as much money as he does, which is generally true. But 
 other bodies are taking hold of the matter. 
 
 It is a question how far a minister ought to go in the attempt 
 to eke out a living by engaging in gainful occupations such as 
 cultivating land, etc. As a rule I believe it to be a mistake for 
 him to go far on such a line. The success of even a small church 
 calls for all his best powers, steadily employed. The harder the 
 field, the greater the labor ; the thinner the soil, the more fertilizer 
 is needed, But I have this conviction, based upon experience 
 and wide acquaintance, that the young man who- goes to a country 
 place, with an adequate equipment of brains, energy, common 
 sense and consecration, and puts his life into his work with no 
 thought of how he is to live, who is not anxious about the mor- 
 row, but seeks first the kingdom of God, will have the things he 
 needs added to him ; and in the end his balance sheet will be 
 quite as clean as that of the man who begins in a city pulpit with 
 a big salary. It depends, not on the environment at all, but on 
 his own personality. I know men who have served a church and 
 a town, and actually become rich in small country parishes. De- 
 spite the pathetic stories current, the fact remains that country 
 ministers do live reasonably well ; do keep up with the times ; 
 
 27 
 
do educate their children; do preserve their mental, moral and 
 spiritual poise. Country children have opportunities for securing 
 the means of education that many a city child lacks. The country 
 boy or girl is far less dependent upon paternal aid than the city 
 youth. 
 
 How country ministers do come out ahead would make some 
 interesting stories, if they could be induced to print them. A 
 good deal of the success is owing to cheerful dispositions. Woe 
 to the minister who goes about with a lugubrious face, com- 
 plaining of his treatment. Mark Tapley would succeed better 
 in the sacred office. A saving sense of humor has high values in 
 ministerial relationships. When you come to think of it, is it 
 not ridiculous for a preacher of the gospel of joy to' worry about 
 the price of beef and broadcloth? If my parishioners have to 
 eat boiled potatoes and home-made chickens on account of a 
 mythical beef trust, I can eat boiled potatoes and home-made 
 chickens. I can wear shabby clothes in well-dressed company if 
 my parishioners can stand it; and they know it. As a fact 
 shabby ministers make them ashamed. I can stay away from 
 conventions if they see no reason for my going, and they know 
 it. Consequently I go. It would utterly discourage them if I 
 demanded a rise in salary large enough to buy clothes and pay 
 for railroad tickets; but country people are born humorists, and 
 genuine humor has its serious side. Charity is it? No. It is not 
 charity in any offensive sense. All that comes my way out of 
 people's good will is the old fashioned "Support and Main- 
 tenance." I like that old Puritan term. 
 
 Country life has perils for the minister. The peril of indo 1 - 
 lence is ever present. Demands upon his energies may be light. 
 Perils of introspection may follow. Small demands leave time 
 for brooding, and brooding over small ills is likely to' hatch out 
 whole broods of large ills. But to< the man of resources and 
 self-reliance the country pastorate has its compensations. Nature 
 in her various moods is ever whispering trust and confidence. 
 The genuine life and character of the people he associates with 
 encourage a philosophic optimism. Country ministers seldom 
 become pessimists. Country life gives time for reading, study, 
 reflection. The best read men, the most thoughtful men, the best 
 informed men, in science and philosophy, in Biblical criticism 
 and in up-to-date theology that we meet outside of the schools in 
 our ministerial associations are men who come from the rural 
 parishes ; and many men who go about tell me that they hear the 
 best preaching, as the average goes, from the country pulpits. 
 
 And the country minister who is doing anything worth while 
 is not so obscure an individual as he sometimes thinks himself. 
 
 28 
 
His parish is all the time growing wider. His denomination 
 knows what he is doing. Summer visitors of kindly sympathies 
 and generous dispositions discover him. Personal touch with the 
 rising generation covers the earth with a host of friends ; and 
 when he travels he need pay few hotel bills. His scattered chil- 
 dren have a welcome for him. If memory hath heavenly treas- 
 ures in it, who has laid up greater? 
 
 A generation hence, Boston children will go to the Public 
 Library to find out who Edward Everett Hale and Minot J. 
 Savage were ; but no child of Lancaster or of Ashby will be ask- 
 ing who George M. Bartol and George S. Shaw were. Their 
 memories are stamped upon all the institutions of their towns. 
 Nobody in Bolton, or round about, ever asks who' Isaac Allen 
 was, though he died sixty-six years ago. None of these country 
 pastors ever did anything very brilliant or famous, except to 
 stay, sixty years, forty years, forty- four years ; but if you will 
 compare the present character of their towns with some that have 
 had no such service as these men rendered you will see what their 
 patient work amounted to. 
 
 29 
 
INSTITUTE FOR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 The following is the prospectus of the Institute for Religious 
 Education, Meadville, Pennsylvania, June 27 to July 11, 1910: • 
 
 President Rev. F. C. Southworth 
 
 Dean Rev. Wmi. I. Lawrance 
 
 Secretary Rev. Henry T. Secrist 
 
 Treasurer Rev. W. C. Green 
 
 Committee from Meadville Conference: Rev. L. W. Mason, 
 D.D., Rev. Minot O. Simons, Prof. F. C. Doan, Ph.D. 
 
 The Institute has been arranged in accordance with a vote 
 of the Meadville Conference. The Meadville Theological School 
 and the Unitarian Sunday School Society co-operate with the 
 churches in maintaining it. 
 
 It will be held for two weeks at Meadville, Pa., beginning on 
 Monday, June 27, 1910, and closing on Monday, July 11. Most 
 of the sessions will be held at the Theological School. 
 
 THE PROGRAM 
 
 Service will be held in the Chapel every morning. 
 
 Frank C. Doan, Ph.D., professor of Systematic Theology and 
 the Philosophy of Religion in the Meadville Theological School, 
 will give a course of lectures on "The Religion of Childhood." 
 In connection with these will be three conferences in which the 
 lectures of Professor Doan will be discussed in relation to the 
 boys and girls as we know them. These conferences will be 
 led by Rev. H. T. Secrist. 
 
 Francis A. Christie, D.D., professor of Church History and 
 the Theology of the New Testament in the Theological School, 
 will give a course of lectures on "The Jesus of History." 
 
 Rev. Wm. I. Lawrance, president of the Unitarian Sunday 
 School Society, will give Readings from the Prophets. 
 
 A series of lectures on the kindergarten and on work for the 
 youngest children will be given by Miss Sara C. Bullard, of Bos- 
 ton, Mass. Miss Bullard is one of the ablest teachers in the kin- 
 dergartens of the public schools and of Unitarian Sunday Schools. 
 She will give material for direct use and will deal with her sub- 
 ject in a very practical way. On two days there will be practice 
 
 30