The Evolution of the Country Community / A Study in Religious Sociology

by Warren H. Wilson

Another principle which the Sunday school can practise for the benefit of the community is the centralization of religious teaching. Even if the common schools are not centralized, the children for the Sunday school should be brought to the church from outlying regions in hired wagons every week. It is better that a large Sunday school be maintained under efficient leadership than that a number of small schools with indifferent teachers should be maintained in various school districts. The larger body can have better leadership. It is more closely under the supervision of the minister, who is generally the superior in education of the laymen, and the social value of the meetings of the Sunday school will be greater in the larger body. All the arguments which make for the centralization of the day school have force for the consolidation of Sunday schools in one large school.

The Sunday school offers a basis for church federation. In the community it is frequently possible for Sunday schools to be united and for the advantages of this common teaching to be made even greater because all the children of the various churches are in one body. The best leadership and the best teachers are thus secured and the community spirit is cultivated through the young people and more loosely attached members of the community.

The older classes of the Sunday school on a basis of study of the Bible should be organized for practical ends. The adult Bible class can be made to have all the influence of the grange in the country community. The fathers and mothers of the community may meet throughout the week socially. They may undertake together the study of the economic life of the community. Lecturers from the agricultural college, representatives of the Play Ground Movement, of the county work of the Y. M. C. A., of historical societies interested in the community's past and other representatives of national movements, may be welcomed and heard by this organized class, the basis of which is religious education.

What I am urging may be accomplished by any church in some measure, however divided the community may be. It is the business of the individual church which has a vision of the community as a whole to act as if it were a federation of churches. Frequently ministers are in favor of church federation, as if that process were an end in itself. The writer believes that the individual church can accomplish the ends of federation if the union of churches can do so. The best means for effecting federation of churches is to practise the program of federation until it shall come about.

The community made up in a degree of new families and the community in which the newcomers are young men and women, children of the residents, are bound to educate these invaders of the community, whether they come from without or whether they come by "birthright membership," in the spirit of benevolence. The giving of money to public uses is one of the cherished social forces of our time. The country community is just entering into the day of cash. The period of barter is over. The farmer therefore needs in his ethical and his religious training, to have definite culture as a philanthropist. The future of the farm-hand in America is still very hopeful. The tenant farmer expects to be an owner. The farmer's son believes himself to have a future. These hopes from earliest years should be disciplined by the practise of giving. For this end the church is a rarely well fitted means. The financial system of the church must be made democratic. The custom of renting pews belonged in the land-farmer period. The writer does not suggest that it be abolished because it can often serve a more democratic purpose in its mature forms under careful supervision than any substitute, but it is all important that the country church be a training-school in the consecration of money to the uses of the community and of the kingdom of God.

For the average countryman the kingdom of God should be embodied in the country community. This is not to say that his vision should be narrow. On the contrary his vision is often of the spread-eagle sort. He overlooks the opportunities for benevolence which are near at hand. He believes in foreign missions sometimes, and contributes impulsively to the support of men in China who are paid a better salary than the pastor in his own community. He applauds the gifts of millionaires and of city people generally to hospitals, but he ignores the ravages of disease in his own community. The divine imperative is that the country community be first organized, by those who live there, for local well-being. For this, contributions of money are necessary and they must be made by all in the community.

The question has been raised frequently whether an endowment is not necessary for the country church. The writer began his ministry in a country church which was generously endowed. He still believes in the value of endowment for some country communities. Ex-President Eliot of Harvard recently commended the principle of endowment to the New England Country Church Association, as a solution of the rural problem. President Butterfield of Massachusetts Agricultural College has emphasized the same principle. It is quite likely that in the Eastern States where the country community has been depleted by the departure of an extraordinary number of families and individuals, an endowment would be of value for the country church. One must not hold to a theoretic opposition to such a method. The important thing is to provide a trained pastor for the country community. In these Eastern communities a larger proportion of the former members of the community have prospered than in Western communities. Many of them are very rich. In these cases it is but natural that an endowed church in the country community express the ministry of the more prosperous citizen to his poorer brethren, but everybody knows that these depleted communities—I will not say these excessive fortunes—are among the most lamentable factors in American life.

The endowment of the church, however, is a very poor apology for a bad situation. It has but limited use, and the creation of a large fund to be used in the country community necessitates careful supervision by men of such business ability as are not usually found in a country community. To remedy such conditions as those with which President Eliot and President Butterfield are most familiar is a specific problem. It is not the general situation throughout the United States. The purpose of these chapters is to make plain the way by which the average American community may escape depletion, may retain the leadership of its best minds and may prosper in a democratic way. I am interested more in training the country population for the future than in mending the mistakes of the past. But I believe that for depleted country communities in New England, New York and Pennsylvania an endowment of the country church would in many instances be effective: and for them alone.

Let the country church undertake its financial problem in a business-like way. At the beginning of the year make a budget of all the monies needed for the year's work. Face the issues of the year frankly. Pay to the minister and to other employees of the church a sufficient amount to provide them with needful things throughout the year. A living wage is not enough. The minister especially needs a working salary. With little variation throughout the country as a whole the minister in the rural community should have in order to minister to his people, to educate his children and to look forward without fear to old age, twelve to fourteen hundred dollars a year and a house. Many country communities have a more expensive standard, and there are a few in which less is required. But in Southern States and in Western communities I have found the conditions, created by the prices which prevail throughout the country as a whole, at this standard.

When the budget of the year is prepared, including missionary and benevolent gifts, it should be distributed by the officers through consultation with all the members of the church, young and old, rich and poor, in such way as to secure a gift from every one and to meet the obligations of the church as a whole. For the moral values of the situation the small gift of the poor and of the child are even more important than the large gift of the well-to-do. For the securing of these gifts the envelope system, especially the so-called duplex envelope, is the best means which can be generally used by churches. It is a method flexible enough to reach every member and it represents in its duplex form the double motive of giving to the community itself and to those larger national and missionary enterprises to which the country should contribute.