The Protestant church member who moves away is not followed up by his church as a general thing. This is partly due to frequent ministerial changes, partly to the lack of well-kept church records, and partly to lack of interest. Of course, the fault is not only with the churches on the Range; it is a shortcoming of the churches everywhere. Since, however, a transient population is characteristic of this country, it would seem to be a matter of prime importance for churches to keep track of the movements of their members. This matter concerns not only local churches and their denominations, but also calls for coöperation among different denominations.
CHART II
Most of the churches are in the larger centers. Of the total resident church membership nearly 43 per cent. belong to city churches, 28 per cent. to town churches, 11 per cent. to village churches and only 15 per cent. to country churches. As the center decreases in size, the more it draws from the surrounding country. Thus, 93 per cent. of the total resident families of city churches live in the city and 7 per cent. live outside; 87 per cent. of the total resident families of town churches live in the town and 13 per cent. live outside; 62 per cent. of the total resident families belonging to village churches live in villages and 38 per cent. live outside.
Somehow the Church has failed to appeal to the men. A prominent man who never came to church in one of the towns in the counties studied, said to a minister: “Here is a hundred dollars. For God’s sake, don’t let the church go down!” This man realized that the community needed the church, but he chose to help from the outside. This is the prevailing attitude: the men are not antagonistic, but they are indifferent. All the counties have a higher proportion of men than of women in the population; each has a higher proportion of women than men in the church membership. Beaverhead, preponderant by 58.3 per cent. in males, has the lowest proportion of adult men in the church membership, 23.8 per cent. Union has the highest proportion of men, 32.7 per cent. For all the churches of the four counties, 30.5 per cent. of all church members are males over twenty-one, 8.6 per cent. are males under twenty-one, 47.5 per cent. are females over twenty-one and 13.4 per cent. are females under twenty-one.
A larger proportion of young people are enrolled in the city and town churches than in those of the village and open country. City and town church memberships have 9 per cent. boys, and 14.36 per cent. girls. Villages have 6.75 per cent. boys, and 12.26 per cent. girls. Open country churches have 8.19 per cent. boys, and 9.26 per cent. girls. One reason for the small number of young people is that many grew up without the Church. The children now growing up have better church opportunities. The hope of the Church for the future is to reach the children.
The small church prevails on the Range, the average active membership being only about fifty-seven. For the various groups, the active membership is as follows:
AVERAGE ACTIVE MEMBERSHIP
| Country | Village | Town | City | Average | ||||||
| Beaverhead | 8 | 6 | 81 | 49 | ||||||
| Hughes | 8 | 39 | 109 | 59 | ||||||
| Sheridan | 33 | 62 | 185 | 117 | ||||||
| Union | 16 | 33 | 66 | 24 |
The country churches have an average of eighteen, the village churches thirty-five, the town churches ninety-one and the city churches 185 members each. Forty-nine of the seventy churches have fifty active members or less, and thirty-six, or 51.4 per cent., of these have less than twenty-five each. Twenty-one churches have each more than fifty active members. Forty-four out of the forty-nine churches of less than fifty members are either in villages or in the open country. All the churches of more than 100 members are either town or city churches.