This book only, and CENTS a d the day indicated beloW DATE DUE CARD '^^ i"-Vt OH THE COUTTTRY CHURCH Volume 5 4 ol V. 3 Federal oouncil of the churches of Christ in America, What every church should know about its community. General Association of Congregational Churches of Massachusetts, Advance reports of various committees, 1908 and 1909 McElfresh, F^ The country Sunday school MclTutt, M. B. Modern methods in the country church McUutt , M^ B, A post-graduate school with a xrarr^ose Massachusetts Federation of Churches, Quarterly "bulletin. Facts and factors » Octoher 1910 **The part of the church in rural progress as discussed at the Amherst Conference." Root, E* T» Btate federations Taf t , A» B, The mistress of the rural manse Taf t , A. B, The tent mission Taylor, G. Basis for social evangelism with rural applications Wells, G, F. An answer to the ITew England country church question* Wells, G« F« V/hat our country churches need Wilson, W. H» The church and the transient Wilson, W. H, Conservation of boys Wilson, W. H. The country church Wilson, W» H. The country church program Wilson, W, H. Don*t breathe on the thermometer Wilson, W, H. The farmers* church and the farmers' ^ college t—i CO Wilson, W, H» Getting the worker to church o- Ui Wilson, W. H» The girl on the farm Wilson J W. H» How to manage a country life institute Wilson, W. 11. ^'Marrying the land." Wilson, W. H. tTo need to he i.^oor in the country Wilson, W. H. Synod's opportunity Wilson, W« H» What limits the rural Evangel •«*»«««* The church, and country life. Pamphlet issued hy the Board of Home Missions of the Preshy- terian Church* Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/noneedtobepoorin03wils no NEED TO BE POOR IF THE COUHTRY by Warren H, Wilson .Ph.D. There should be none poor in a country neighborhood • Among successful farming people no one is poor. It is essential to good farming such as is handed down from father to son and grandson, that no one is poor in the community. There is something in the process of good agri- culture which distributes a living income to everybody. The country has been the poor man*s mode of finding an estate. I believe that farm- ing offers this possibility to the poor in per- manent promise for endless generations. Poverty in the country is more terrible than in the city. It can be hid from no one. Cne*s near neighbors in the country are nearer to him than kinsfolk. An old lumberman ex- pressed this about the children of his shiftless neighbor. "Them children come into my house at breakfast and watch every bite go down my throat" The spectacle of poor neighbors has no screen over it in the country* Rural slums cannot be well hidden. Everybody in the community is de- pendent upon everybody else for the conditions of life, so that poverty in any household is a degradation and a detriment to every other household. In good farming communities which have for generations got a distributed income out of the soil, there is no such thing as charity among the people of the community. Such a neighbor- hood acquires ways of mutual aid which have the assent of every one. They are like those in- stincts which cause people in the country to come together for a barn raising, to put out a fire, or doctor a sick horse. The man of small estate in the country is ready to save his neighbor's thoroughbred horse from the colic, and expects no pay for the service. He is like- wise unashamed if when his own solitary'- animal dies his neighbor subscribes to purchase another horse. Country neighborhoods have an instinct of mutual insurance against the calamities of life. The exigencies of their struggle with nature teach them certain common actions on which life itself depends. Just as anybody in the community would sit up at night with a sick horse or a sick man, so anybody in the community would expect from his neighbor that assistance which protects him against poverty ^ provided only a community spirit is cultivated and neigh- borly feeling is general. This kind of thing is usually taught to a neighborhood by a church or by some early leaders who may themselves have passed away, but its in* fluence is not confined to the church members or to the followers of that leader, as years pass. Neighborly action knows no doctrine. It cannot be organized, for it moves by instincts, not upon reason alone. Of course a neighborhood is like a beehive. Foreign objects may get in sometimes and inter- fere, but the diligent feelings of the country- side will surround the intruder with a cell of wax and shut him out from controlling the neigh- borhood. I have kno'ATi a summer hotel to have its own charities and its alien objects of benevolence, but the community, aside from these pitiful and artificial creatures, had none poor. Among the farmers there was no pauper, though the wealthy people from the city could not have a comfortable summer without somebody dependent upon their patronage. There will always be people in eYery com- munity who have little. Most people are inca- pable of saving money and very few have capaci- ty to get rich, but everybody who is not defec- tive can possess enough of productive land or tools to keep him from pauperism. This should be the ideal in every countryside. The abolition of pauperism is possible in the country, and the church should set itself this ideal. Hew shall it be accomplished. By a steadfast policy and persistent teaching, not of thrift and accumulation, but of the value of self-respecting small property and by something more than teaching. The church in the country should inspire in the mind of every man in the community, the desire to possess enough to keep him out of want. This does not mean a store be- side which he can live in idleness, but it means the tools by means of which he can thrive through diligence. The ideal for every man in the country community should be to possess productive land or tools, without fear and without admitting excep- tions. The country minister should teach to every- body in the countryside a doctrine of industry, of productive work and of self-respect based upon the use of productive land or tools. When accident comes to any member of the com- munity the minister and his church should summon all the neighbors to replace the property des- troyed. The poor man's horse, his cow, his barn, his cobbler's shop or blacksmith shop constitute his protection against pauperism. If these pro- ductive tools be lost, he has no self-respecting means of living. If the acre upon which a widow subsists by diligent thrift be taken from her on account of debt, she must bow her head and beg. If her acre can be kept in her possession by an act of the countryside on her behalf, she will never need to beg. She may be sometimes hungry and may always be pinched, but she will never be a pauper. The Christian religion is not a religion for paupers, but it has a great deal to do with pover- ty • The Christian churches are all of them his- i torical records of the fight of a population against pauperism and want. The Christian churches have done pretty well. They are not poor any longer i Some of their members, if anything, are too rich. f But they must not forget that the discipline of the Christian religion that is in the world to-day has been attained in the struggle against poverty. It has been a hard struggle, but it has been good. In the country community this struggle need not result in failure, as so often it does in the city. No / one need be poor in the country. In the experience^ of contending with poverty the religious life of country people will be enriched, their neighborly feeling made tender- and their conviction of the Kingdom of God made bright. As Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of God," ^c >.^' ^ .^ VL ^feC ^ imiE 1 m (^3 1 ^ 1 >iiii) 1 3 B ft ^W s sis 1 ^^ ijM^ iSK -Hv^tSwtT Hi igyijfe irai fii )5?CrO^ mk is€ m?9x^wgi m ^i3i Q^ h£^3^'* W^@^^ ^ ■^