Chapter II: Community Uplift and Social Betterment

One of the convictions out of which the vision came that led to the work of the Larger Parish was that the Church should minister to the _whole man_; that nothing that goes to make a man a full-rounded man, or that has a legitimate place in his life should be ignored by the Church; that it should have something to say and something to do with his social nature as well as his religious nature; that it should concern itself with the affairs of the community and be an element of uplifting power in the community life. Following this conviction, it was quite natural that, when the work of the Larger Parish was undertaken, considerable attention should be paid to that part of the life of the people that is often thought to lie outside of the distinctive realm of religion. The effort has been made to help the people in a social way and to make their recreations healthful and wholesome, to stimulate and guide them in their intellectual life, and by these broader aims to minister to all their needs. It may be profitable to show how the methods used in the work of the Larger Parish have contributed to these ends.

Recognizing the tendency of country life to isolation and extreme individualism and the danger of its becoming barren and monotonous, we have thought it important to provide for social and literary functions, and for wholesome recreation and healthful pleasures. This was thought desirable, not only for the young people, but for all the people, and we have sought to bring together in these activities the old and the young, and the children as well. It has been our effort to make all our out-stations, where services are held, social centers, and to encourage frequent meetings of the people where they might mingle together in a free and friendly manner. The people have responded to these efforts and have appreciated very much the opportunities that have been afforded them in this direction.

1. Neighborhood Clubs have been formed in some of the out-stations whose function it is to provide for these social necessities. The name, "Neighborhood Club" quite well defines their object. They are to serve as social centers. There is a simple constitution and by-laws, and the usual officers. But the work is carried on under the direction of three committees in three departments. First, there is a Social Committee, whose business it is to arrange for picnics, parties, sociables, excursions, etc. Then there is a Literary Committee that provides for literary entertainments, lectures, debates, and the like. After that comes the Team Work Committee, which leads out in any movement in which the people need to cooperate, such as helping an unfortunate neighbor to harvest his crops, planting trees by the roadside, plowing out the roads in winter, or mending a bad place in the highway. Often many kindly deeds are omitted, and many desirable things for a community are left undone, not because the people are selfish, or wanting in public spirit, but for lack of leading. There is no one to lead out in such things, and so they are neglected.

Not long ago one of the neighborhood clubs spent the day in helping to raise a barn, having a dinner together and enjoying a jolly social time. One of the clubs offered a prize for rat-killing, getting out some posters that were a curiosity. From time to time various matters of local interest are taken up and discussed by the club, and considerable talent in debate has been developed in unexpected places. Occasionally the various neighborhood clubs get together for a day of sports and recreation. They have in the forenoon games and contests, then a picnic dinner, followed by a program of music and addresses. These gatherings promote neighborliness and afford the farmers and their wives and children a little break in the monotony of their toilsome lives.

The first winter a lecture course was organized, consisting of five or six numbers, mostly by home talent. All these lectures were given before the various clubs. The pastor gave an account of his travels in the Holy Land. The principal of the Academy talked about "The Farm and the School." A doctor from a neighboring town spoke about "Farm Sanitation," and an expert horticulturist about "Better Orchards." A layman spoke about "Some Legal Principles That Should be Generally Known." Much interest was taken in these lectures, and the people turned out well to hear them. The next winter the clubs arranged their own programs and carried on a lively and interesting campaign. One of the clubs had a series of Special Topic nights. One night was devoted to "The Pilgrims," with a varied and interesting program. Another to "Abraham Lincoln," another to "Michigan," with a program full of information, historical, statistical, and otherwise, about the state of which the community was a part. One of the clubs organized and maintained an Old Fashioned Singing School under an instructor from the village, that was a fair success. These neighborhood clubs have proved to be very popular and very valuable, and it would seem that they are well adapted to almost any country community, taking the place of the old lyceums and literary societies of a former generation that did so much to sharpen the wits, inform the minds, and increase the friendliness of those who went before us.

2. In some of the neighborhoods where it has not yet been thought best to organize clubs, some attention has been paid to this side of life and some provision made for social diversions. During Thanksgiving week, festivals were held in three different places that were very successful and profitable. The description of one of them will be typical. Three communities, East Joyfield, Demerley, and the South Chapel, united in holding a festival in the Joyfield Town Hall on Thanksgiving Day. Thorough preparations had been made. Various committees were appointed, the teachers in the four school districts included in that territory trained the children, a program of games and sports and contests was arranged, and all the people took much interest in getting ready for the event. At three o'clock a religious service was held in the hall and the pastor preached a Thanksgiving sermon to a large and attentive congregation.

While the ladies were preparing the supper, the program of sports, a part of which had been previously given in a large barn near by, was finished on the lawn. Various races were run and stunts of different kinds were performed, including a tug of war and wrestling matches, that took up the time till the call to supper came. Two long tables extending the whole length of the hall were filled twice, not less than one hundred and fifty sitting down to a sumptuous feast. When all had satisfied the wants of the "inner man," there were supplies enough left to feed another crowd almost as great, so lavish are the country folk in their hospitality.

As soon as the tables could be cleared away and the people could get seated the evening's entertainment began. The hall was crowded to its utmost capacity, the people were jammed in like sardines in a box, and some could not find entrance, but the utmost good nature prevailed, and they sat, not patiently, but delightedly, through a program of recitations, dialogs, songs, and like exercises given by the children occupying two full hours. Then came the distributing of the prizes to the winners in the games, and the happy crowd dispersed, feeling more kindly toward each other and realizing more fully the joy of neighborliness because they had come together in their Thanksgiving festival. Similar festivals were held at Grace the day before, and at Liberty Union the day after. They were all conceived and carried out by Mr. Huck, the assistant pastor, just from England, thus proving his efficiency and his adaptability.

3. On a snowy Saturday the men of East Joyfield, under the lead of the assistant pastor, arranged "A Community Rabbit Hunt." They met with their guns and went in pairs in different directions, scouring the woods and the fields in search of game. They were measurably successful, and a heap of forty-five "cotton tails" rewarded their efforts. They were distributed among fifteen families, who were to prepare them with other good things for a "Rabbit Social" on the next Tuesday night at the chapel. Though the night was stormy, the chapel was well filled, there was a fine program of music and games, and then a feast of rabbit pie that was appetizing and abundant. So the "cotton tails" served the community better by being eaten themselves than they would if they had been left to eat the bark from the young fruit trees on the surrounding farms.

4. Since the pursuit of athletics has so large a place in the minds of the young people in these days, it has been thought worth while to do something in this field. One of the assistant pastors having had some training when in school organized Athletic Clubs among the boys and young men in six or seven different neighborhoods. These clubs met from time to time for practise. They were combined into an Athletic League for the whole parish and occasionally held Field Days. They would come together on the Academy campus at Benzonia and spend the day in sports and games and contests in which a previously prepared schedule of events was carried on. There were junior contests for the boys and the girls too had a part in the last field-day sports. Occasionally they have a banquet with toasts and an opportunity for social intercourse. These athletic clubs have not only done much to encourage clean and healthful sports, but they have given the assistant pastor large influence over the young people, and most of them are noticeably regular in their attendance on the services he conducts on the Sabbath.

Ladies' Aid Societies are organized in the various neighborhoods and they bring together in a social way, not only the ladies, but also the men in the winter season, who then find time to enjoy the good dinner that the ladies provide and to spend part of the day in social intercourse. These Aid Societies are ready to take hold in a helpful way of any enterprise that is for the good of the community, and any enterprise to which they devote themselves is bound to go.

5. One more way of working has proved to be valuable, and well worth while. Like nearly all small towns, we have a weekly newspaper which finds its way into most of the homes of the parish. The pastor and the editor work together in the effort to make it an organ of helpful power in the community life. For the past three years I have had each week a column--usually a column and a half--in this paper. It is my regular Monday forenoon work to write that column. I put into it whatever I think will be useful to the people, bringing them many a message that would hardly come appropriately into the pulpit, and reaching in that way many whom I would not often come in touch with otherwise. The themes are various, a few may serve as specimens. "How to Keep One's Religion and Make It Pay," "The Back Yard," "The Test of the Summer Time," "The Man You Happen to Meet," "The Utility of the Yell," "The Wedding Bells and Funeral Knells," "Dr. Charles M. Sheldon and His Ideas of an Educated Man," "Be a Columbus," "The Keen Zest of Living." Any local topic of general interest is taken up and discussed, and the activities of the church and the social and literary doings in the various out-stations are brought before the people. So they are kept constantly aware that something is going on that is worth while throughout the parish, and I have an opportunity to keep my ideas before the whole parish. This I consider one of my most valuable ways of working, and I find that the Pastor's Column is eagerly looked for and widely read.

This suggests the question whether in the past the pastors of our churches have sufficiently appreciated the value of printer's ink as an adjunct in carrying on religious and community work. If the pastor can speak through the press as well as the pulpit, he is duplicating his influence.

6. The Benzonia Christian Endeavor Society purchased a stereopticon for use in the Larger Parish. It was equipped with electrical apparatus to be used in the villages, and with acetylene light for the schoolhouses and country places where there was no electric current. It could be easily carried from place to place, and became a very practical and useful instrument in the work. Slides on various subjects were easily obtained, and the effect of lectures and talks was greatly increased. The people in these days want to see things as well as to hear about them, and the sight helps out the hearing. They never get tired of looking at good pictures. It became easy with the help of the lantern to provide an interesting and profitable evening entertainment, and the people showed their appreciation by their presence in large numbers and their careful attention. "The Panama Canal" was thus presented and illustrated, and "The Other Wise Man." Some lectures by the pastor--"On Horseback through the Holy Land," "A Week in and about Jerusalem," "Three Months on an Ocean Steamer"--were made more vivid and attractive by views from photographs taken on a foreign trip. In many ways the stereopticon has proved a valuable acquisition, and especially in a country parish can it be used with great profit and satisfaction.

7. In a local option campaign the influence of the Larger Parish made itself felt in an effective way for the banishment of the saloon. Debates were arranged on the question in the neighborhood clubs.

The pastors preached on the subject and made addresses at the meetings held throughout the county. One of the assistant pastors gave valuable service on the Central Committee. In all such movements that have for their object the purifying of the community and the establishment of righteousness the forces that are active in the Larger Parish are lined up on the right side, ready to cooperate and promptly available for practical work.

An Every Member Canvass for home and foreign missions is carried on throughout the whole parish. Each year a letter is prepared, giving briefly the progress of the work for the year past and setting forth its present condition. These letters are sent by mail to nearly all the families in the parish, with small collection envelopes for the different members of the household, with the request that they bring the offerings to their accustomed places of worship. The children as well as the older people are encouraged to bring in their offerings, and we have found this an effective way of cultivating in them the spirit of benevolence. There is much gain in leading them to feel that they have a part in the work.

VI

THINGS YET TO BE DONE

Their name is legion. Everything is to be done. Only a beginning has been made. Nothing is finished. What has been accomplished is only a prophecy of the larger and completer work that lies before us in the future. Religious and community work is not mechanical. You cannot finish it up and store it away as the carpenter finishes a box, or the housewife a garment. Life is a development, a growth, and those who deal with life must always be content with beginnings. "Nothing that has life is ever finished." Life in its larger unfolding and its fuller meaning must always be in the future. A life that is finished and complete would better end, and a community that has reached perfection should be translated to another sphere. We must ever be content to spend our labor upon beginnings, thankful for such fruitage as may appear from time to time. The real ingathering must always be in the future. What has been accomplished in the Larger Parish gives us confidence in the methods employed, and encourages us to expect larger things from the better and completer application of those and similar methods in the days to come.

In may be well to mention some of the things that have not as yet been fully done, but that we hope to see accomplished in the Larger Parish in the future.

1. The first and most important aim of this work, and of all church work, is to bring people into the kingdom of God. All social and community work must be subordinate to this and lead up to it. The Church must be something more than a social settlement. I still hold to the old-fashioned idea that men need to be saved, and that the only salvation that there can be for them is found in loyalty to Jesus Christ. While this salvation is a matter of the spirit, affecting one's standing with God and his relation to the great eternal realities, it also affects his standing with men and his relation to society. And here comes in all the humanitarian and community work that is a legitimate and important part of the church's concern. Community work can never take the place of the work of God's Spirit in the individual life. To be permanently valuable it must be the _result_ of that work. The kingdom of God embraces the complete ideal, and if we can induce men to live according to the principles of that kingdom, careful attention will be paid to all the work that needs to be done for the community. Therefore the work of the Larger Parish is primarily, though not exclusively, evangelistic. We are trying to lead men to become Christians, not in a narrow sense, but in the large, rich meaning of that word which the teaching of Jesus gives it.

During the three years that we have in review there have been some such results. A goodly number have decided to begin the Christian life and have taken their places in the ranks of the followers of Jesus Christ. We are thankful that the army of the Lord has received so many new recruits. But there are many more who are not as yet willing to enlist. The number of those who are still outside the ranks is greater than of those who are marching under the banner of the visible Church. Much remains to be done in this direction. The work is far from being complete in this its most vital and important aspect. We have only made a beginning. It will not be finished until every person in all the wide parish is openly and positively arrayed on the side of Christ. At the present rate of progress it looks as if the Church had work laid out for it for a long time to come. It is not in danger of soon running out of material. There is a great work yet to be done in the way of bringing men into the kingdom of God. We hope to keep that always in view--to make it our central aim and our uppermost thought.

2. There needs to be created in the hearts of the people more respect for the Church, a better understanding of its mission, and a fuller appreciation of its work. Many people have mistaken ideas of the Church, and therefore fail to appreciate its work or its purpose. Some regard it simply as a venerable institution that has long had a place in human society. In former times it has done an important work, and still has its value. It is to be honored for its record and still encouraged in a mild and patronizing way. They would not banish the Church--they are not yet quite ready to undertake to conduct human society without it. They tolerate it and perhaps support it in a half-hearted way, but they do not regard it as absolutely essential or its work as vitally important. They do not understand the Church. The Church may be in some measure to blame for this. It has not always understood itself. Its conception of its own mission has been small, narrow, and inadequate, and it was inevitable that no truer or larger impression could be made upon the community. When the Church undertakes to do all for which it is responsible and prosecutes it with the vigor and earnestness that it deserves, the people will begin to understand it better and to appreciate more fully its mission.

Many people regard the Church as an institution to be supported. In common thought this institution, for some reason that may not always appear, has assumed the right to lay the community under tribute for support. Some accept this traditional idea without thinking much about it, while others are in revolt against it. One of the assistant pastors was calling at a house for the first time. The master of the house, when he was introduced, said, "Oh, another preacher! Well, I suppose they all have to be supported." And he was not the first representative of the Church that has met with such an indignity.

Here again the Church may be at least partially to blame. It has too often regarded its office as that of preying upon the community as well as praying for it. It has not always been careful to give value received.

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.

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 cooperation 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 cooperation 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.

It has been the object of the work of the Larger Parish to supply this need of country life. It has provided and promoted frequent opportunities for the people to come together in a social way. The Sunday services established in so many places have not only served as opportunities of worship, but also of neighborly intercourse and of the interchange of friendly greetings. The neighborhood clubs have been a kind of social and literary clearing-house for the community, affording many a pleasant and profitable evening and providing something wholesome to think of and to plan for during the day. The Ladies' Aid Societies have brought the women together, in projects and accomplishments of common interest, relieving the weeks of monotonous toil with forms of cooperative fellowship. Much more needs to be done to impart interest and attraction to life in the country, and it is something to which the Church, in its desire to minister to the whole man, may very appropriately give its thought and effort.

6. Machinery seems to be a necessity in all kinds of work. Nothing can be done without a method, an organization, a machine--some kind of an instrument to facilitate the process. But the machine is never properly an end in itself. Sometimes it is made an end, but no farmer could be satisfied with a reaper that did not cut the grain, however beautiful and well-made it might be or however smoothly it might run. Nevertheless some churches seem to be satisfied with the smooth running of the machinery, even though the results of it all are very meager.

The primary object of the work of the Larger Parish is to help the people and to serve them in a religious and social way, not to promote a denomination, to build up a church, to perfect an organization, or to construct or to operate machinery of any kind. But in order to help the people and serve their best interests efficiently, some machinery, some organization, is necessary. Our thought is to supply it when the necessity comes, but not before. When it is needed it must be invented or discovered, or in some way brought into the service. Certain methods have been introduced. There have been employed some forms of organization, some machinery has been set in operation. Some things we have tried, that did not work satisfactorily and they had to be discarded. Some of the methods that seem to be successful at present may not always continue to work so well, and they will have to be exchanged for others. We must ever keep in view the prime object for which we are working--to serve the people and to uplift the community life--and to that object we must adapt our methods and adjust our machinery.

If we do the work that needs to be done in the coming days we shall need a true and unwavering purpose, a clear eye to discern the situation, a calm and correct judgment to fit the method to the work, and above all, the constant leading of the Holy Spirit. The Larger Parish is not a method, or organization, or machine, that one can secure and put in operation and then the work is done. It is a vision--an ideal--that must be a living reality in the soul, and then must be wrought out in actual life in the best way possible.

VII

SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS

This story began with "Some Convictions." It ends with "Some Conclusions." There has been an attempt to tell how a vision became a reality. The vision originated in convictions. The conclusions have come from the realization of the vision.

There are a few things that may be stated with confidence as the result of the three years' work in translating the vision into the fact of the Larger Parish. The mention of some of them will round out the story.

1. The village church, if it would do its proper work, must belong to the people and be in close touch with them. It must minister in some way to all the people and be a force in the life of all the people. Churches like individuals are known to have certain characteristics, to possess certain temperaments. Some are aristocratic and exclusive. They gather to themselves a number of select families who have common tastes and are congenial with one another. They have good times together, and within that narrow circle there is a delightful social life. Those few people are well trained, and well instructed in the facts and principles of religion as they are understood by them. But they do not seem to get hold of the idea that the church is for all the people; that as Jesus conceived it it is essentially democratic. They have no sense of obligation for the community at large, and make no effort to affect it as a whole and to lift it up to a higher level.

The village church that would do its work must be democratic and must have a community consciousness. It must belong to the people--be in close touch with those of each and every class.

2. The village church, if it would do its proper work, must recognize its obligation to minister in some way to the religious and social needs of the people in the outlying country districts. The village should not be its parish, but rather its base of operations, from which it goes forth to all the wide-stretching territory that lies beyond.

3. The church which has this vision, which recognizes this obligation and seeks to discharge it, will find some way of doing it. The work within the towns and villages is often great and difficult. Many churches have failed to reach all the people within the sound of their church-bell, and there is much work at their very doors that they have not yet accomplished. Shall they reach out and extend their parish threefold, and multiply their duties and obligations many times? If they do not do all that ought to be done in their smaller parish, shall they increase its boundaries and assume greater obligations? Yes. That is what many churches are languishing for--a bigger job, something that it is worth while to do; something that will challenge all their powers and awaken to enthusiasm their sleeping energies.

4. The only village church that will continue to abide in strength and vigor in the future years will be the church that is all buttressed about by a strong and vigorous country work. It must be done as a means of self-preservation. The village churches are as much in danger of losing their lives as the country churches are. The church that confines its efforts within the village boundaries is sure to languish and dwindle and after a while it will give up the ghost, as it ought to do. As the city is fed from the towns and villages, so the towns and villages are fed from the country. If the work goes down in the towns and villages, it will be felt in the city, and if it loses its hold in the country, it will soon lose its grip upon the villages and towns. The country needs the work of the Larger Parish, and it will perish without it. But the village church needs to do the work even more, and unless it takes it up with vigor it is doomed.

5. When the churches come to be more interested in the promotion of the Kingdom than they are in the promotion of their own particular denomination, they will begin to have that prosperity which only those can have who are really doing the Lord's work. The chief hindrance to the work of the churches is often the churches themselves. One of the greatest needs of the villages and rural regions is fewer churches.

If in each small village there was a single church in which all the Christians of the community could unite, they could easily organize the work in all the surrounding country and carry it on successfully. But where there are a number of churches they are in the way of each other and effectually prevent any widespread and efficient work. Still, even in that unfortunate condition, something may be done in a systematic way to help the rural regions. Why cannot the representatives of the various churches get together, make a united survey of the country for miles in every direction, become fully acquainted with the situation and conditions, and seeing clearly what needs to be done, divide the territory up between them, giving each church its own particular field, and allowing it to arrange for its cultivation in its own way? I believe that some such arrangement is feasible when it is the Kingdom that the churches are chiefly interested to promote, instead of the particular denomination to which they happen to belong.

6. When all the religious forces in any community can combine and work together, all the work that needs to be done in the community can be done, and there will be no lack of resources to carry it on with vigor and success. In almost every community there are Christians enough, and there is money enough, for the work, if only they can be assembled and utilized. But when they are scattered about, lying around lose and uncombined, or when they are organized into competing camps, they are useless for any purpose of aggressive and effective work. It isn't the poverty of the people that stands in the way, or the small number of professing Christians. It is the lack of team work, the lack of cooperation, that constitutes the weakness of the cause. No work can be done in the country that is at all effective without this cooperation and combination. With it, all the work that needs to be done, can be done.

7. The church that sees the vision and with faith and courage undertakes to make it a reality, will be prospered. Perhaps the experience of the Benzonia church may be cited as proof of this. Situated in a small village, composed of people of meager means, in a country that has not even yet emerged from pioneer conditions, it had for many years carried on its work only with much sacrifice and careful economy. Three years ago, by a unanimous vote, it formally adopted the policy of reaching out and annexing all the territory within a radius of five miles in every direction, thus greatly increasing its obligations and more than doubling its annual budget of expenses. There was some questioning as to how it could be done, but, without waiting for clearer light, it moved forward unanimously to the enlarged work.

What do we find to be the result of the three years? They have been the three most prosperous years of the church's history. Two men have been added to the clerical force. The expenses of the church have been met, and the bills have been paid when they were due. The contributions for home and foreign missions have more than doubled. More members have been received than during any other similar period. There has been perfect harmony and the people have been glad and happy in their common work. Ten places of worship have been established in the country around where regular services are held. The people in these neighborhoods attend their own services and do not come into the village church as some of them formerly did. The present arrangement does not tend to build up a large central congregation, but has the opposite effect. Thirty former central members have become part of a newly formed church three miles away. There has been no great increase in the population, either of the village or of the country around. But the congregations and the Sunday-schools were never so large as they have been during this period. It has been found impossible to accommodate all those who wished to worship with the church, or properly to care for those attending the Sunday-school. A larger building became an actual necessity, and in the summer of 1913 an addition was made, increasing the seating capacity of the building by one third, and providing a number of rooms for Sunday-school and social purpose. Can we doubt that the blessing of God will attend any church that sees the vision, and with faith and courage and sacrifice gives itself to the work of making it a reality?

8. When all the ministers and all the churches catch the vision of the Larger Parish and address themselves to the work of making it a reality, the rural regions will be rehabilitated, religiously, morally, and socially, and a splendid impulse will be given to the work throughout the whole country. If some practical plan can be adopted by the village churches for extension work, the whole aspect of the country situation may be quickly changed. The people, both in the villages and in the open country, are more ready for some such movement than has been supposed. Would not the Larger Parish idea as set forth in this story furnish a good working plan for such a movement?

No man can have very much enthusiasm in a task that does not challenge all his powers and bring them into action--neither can a church. With the village churches it is a case of self-preservation as well as outreaching service. They must do this work or die. They will not long survive the spiritual declension of the country. The country and the village stand or fall together. Their fortunes are united. They must help each other up into a better life or they will sink into a like economic, social, and spiritual stagnation and death. The plan of the wider parish, or some better plan, if it is wisely and vigorously worked, will secure both to the village and the country communities their rightful heritage of spiritual and social strength and usefulness.

9. Nearly all the Christian denominations have their home missionary boards or societies whose functions it is to help sustain gospel work in needy places and to organize and cherish churches on the frontier and in destitute places. The frontier lines are not so extensive as they once were, but the desolate places are almost as numerous as ever, and they are in the very heart of our most highly developed civilization. In fact, they lie all about our churches, often almost within the sound of the church-bell. It is often too expensive to sustain a minister and maintain regular services in all these places and so they are left without gospel privileges. If they can be grouped about a village church as a center, and if the church can be the base of operations from which the work is carried on in all these outlying regions; if through the aid of the home missionary boards a sufficient clerical force can be maintained to carry on the wide work, will not such a course be a practical, a successful, and an economical method of accomplishing home mission work?

God is waiting to give the vision to those who are ready to receive it. The country in its great need and desolation is waiting for the help which the village churches can give to them. I believe the home missionary societies and boards are ready to cooperate in some such plan for the uplifting and the evangelization of the country districts. The village churches themselves are waiting for the wider work to quicken their waning life, and to kindle their dying enthusiasm. The world is waiting to see them move forward in a determined and consecrated effort to reduce the vision to reality. God is waiting to pour out his Spirit in abundant blessing upon the churches that have enough faith and courage to undertake the work.

I believe that the fulfilment of all this is not far in the future, and if this story of the Larger Parish shall contribute even in a small degree to this result, the teller will be amply repaid for his attempt to picture the new path along which God has led him.

"Move to the fore.
God himself waits, and must wait, till thou come,
Men are God's prophets though ages lie dumb.
Halts the Christ-Kingdom, with conquest so near?
Thou art the cause, then, thou man at the rear.
Move to the fore."