It is our purpose to make the Church a necessity in the community. Its good works, its efficiency as an element of power in everything that is for the improvement and uplifting of the people, should be so great and so evident that no one can reasonably call them in question. That is one of the things that needs to be done, and that by the method of the Larger Parish we hope to accomplish. We propose that the Church shall have such a spirit of helpfulness, that it shall be so wise and practical in laying out its work, so energetic and aggressive in prosecuting it, that all shall recognize it as a potent and most blessed force—an institution that they gladly support because of its practical value. Some progress has been made in this direction. The Church has gained immensely in the respect of the people since it began the work of the Larger Parish. The people can see that it is really doing something.

3. There needs to be created a stronger and more universal community spirit. The tendency in the country toward isolation and independence is especially strong. Each farmer is separate from every other. He lives alone, somewhat like a baron in his castle in old feudal times, sufficient for himself, without much necessity of borrowing, or thought of lending. Living in such conditions it is quite natural that he should grow selfish, and should come to think largely if not exclusively of his own individual interests. He is in danger of overlooking the fact that society is an organism, and he is a part of it; that he has duties and obligations to the general public; that his life cannot be complete if it is lived alone; that he owes something to the community at large, and that he must get something from it if he would really be a man, do a man’s work, and fill a man’s place. He must come to see that the public good means private advantage, and that when he cuts himself off from others and thinks only of his own individual interests he is following a foolish and suicidal policy.

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THE BENZONIA CHURCH

This community spirit needs to be carefully cultivated, and that work has been going on in the Larger Parish. The community spirit has been growing. The people are more interested in one another and in those things that are undertaken for the public good than they formerly were. But there is still much to be done in this respect. Not all the people are yet able to look over the narrow boundaries of their own possessions and see their neighbors’ needs. Not all grasp the idea of the solidarity of society. But this spirit is growing and there will be larger fruitage in the coming days.

4. There needs to be more team work among the people, more coöperation in carrying out the schemes that are for the public good. When all the people take hold together, there is scarcely anything that needs to be done that cannot be accomplished. A single individual is comparatively powerless, but a common movement in any community is bound to succeed. One of the foremost services to any community is to unite its forces and bring the people to work together heartily and enthusiastically in some good cause.

The work of the Larger Parish has been useful in this direction. The Team Work Committees of the neighborhood clubs have this for their object—to lead out in anything in which it is desirable for the people to move together. It is easier to bring the people to unite their efforts now than it was three years ago, but much more remains to be done. The goal has not yet been reached. The effective team work that we have seen is a prophecy of that completer coöperation in all good things that we hope and expect to see in the coming days.

5. In some way more variety should be brought into the lives of country people. Farm life should become one of the most attractive and interesting spheres of activity. Its freedom, its independence, its close contact with nature, should give to it for multitudes a compelling charm. It would seem that a strong current of human interest could be made to flow from the crowded and unwholesome conditions of the city to the open country, where the fresh breezes play and the flowers bloom. At present it is not so. The stream flows in the opposite direction and every year the city swallows up much of the best blood of the country. It is the city that attracts, and the country that repels. This can be explained very largely by the isolated and monotonous character of country life.

The only way by which this movement can be checked or reversed is to give more variety to rural life; to break up its monotony and to introduce into it those intellectual and social pleasures and employments that are a necessary part of a healthful and contented life. Young people crave variety, they must get together, they must have some kind of amusements, some form of recreation. If they cannot find it on the farm, they will go to the city where it is supplied in lavish abundance but often in objectionable forms.