“MARY, CALL THE CATTLE HOME!”
But this “Mary” is a homesteader’s wife and the Range is a long way from the Sands o’ Dee, and “Mary” herself is usually a long way from anywhere.
The Part of the Church
Finally, there is the duty of the Church. “The churches performed an inestimable social function in frontier expansion,” says John Dewey. “They were the rallying points not only of respectability but of decency and order in the midst of a rough and turbulent population. They were the representatives of social neighborliness and all the higher interests of the communities.” The Church has played an important rôle in the past, but its position in this same country to-day is disappointing. For some reason it has not become essential to the landscape.
WAITING AT THE CHURCH
A Christian Church in Union County which draws its congregation from a wide area.
The immense distances and scattered population have, of course, been a great problem. All the country west of the Mississippi makes up 70.9 per cent. of the total area of the United States, while the western area has only 30 per cent. of the total population. In 1850, it had only 8.6 per cent. of the population. The average density per square mile in the United States is 35.5 persons. Illinois has 115.7 people per square mile, but Montana has an average density of only 3.8, Wyoming of 2, New Mexico of 2.9 and South Dakota of 8.3 persons.
Much of the Range has never had the chance to go to church, and one result of the lack of church facilities in the past is that it is difficult now to create a church spirit. Homesteading is no fun. It means being away from doctors and comforts, getting ahead little by little, facing set-backs, discouragements and loneliness. Of course, a homesteader is absorbed by his place. Unless he is simply proving up on his claim for the purpose of selling it, he must be absorbed if he is to succeed. He broke with most of his home ties before he came and, after arriving, has not had time to go adventuring for any but those simple things which he must have. “Church” is one of the things he left behind. Church services have rarely followed him, and generally he has been too busy to seek them. Even if he were minded to hunt them out, it takes more than average courage to be “different” when one’s neighbors are largely of a common mind. So the absence of church has become a habit.