THE DECLINE OF RURAL NEW ENGLAND. 389 



corresponding additions. In scores of towns houses of worship 

 are closed, to all appearance finally, or are used for non-religious 

 purposes, while others are in the hands of Catholics, or are too far 

 gone to decay for occupancy of any sort. In many towns enough 

 church members in substantial doctrinal accord might be found to 

 form one strong and influential church but for minor points of 

 doctrine and practice, and so, divided, they live at a dying rate, of 

 little consequence to their adherents or the community. The 

 whole truth would not be told if it were not added that this re- 

 ligious desolation is also largely due to lack of sufficient interest 

 on the part of members and outsiders to support church work 

 and attend religious services. Not that the faith of the fathers is 

 repudiated for newer or more liberal ideas, but that apathy on the 

 whole subject is often the prevalent spirit. The home mission 

 societies regard some of these towns in as much need of mission- 

 ary work as the rudest frontier settlements. 



7. I am told by persons who have spent their lives in these 

 rural towns that there is a decline in public spirit, and a visible 

 growing away from the pure democracy characteristic of primi- 

 tive New England. For example, the old school district is no 

 longer a body politic in New Hampshire. A town committee 

 manages all school affairs. 



All the statements of this paper are particularly applicable to 

 the large extent of rougher hill country of New Hampshire, Ver- 

 mont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, but in a lesser degree and 

 with various modifications, to other districts remote from largo 

 towns. It is possible that some of these conditions may be im- 

 proved when industry and population are rearranged and adapted 

 to the changed circumstances, but I can not escape the conviction 

 that the decline is permanent. Even if the late movement to at- 

 tract Swedish immigrants to these abandoned farms is successful, 

 neither we nor our successors will see here again a rural com- 

 munity of the old type keen, active, intelligent, sturdy, and in- 

 dependent, of strong moral and religious fiber, an unrivaled ca- 

 pacity for popular government, and an inborn and inbred taste 

 for hard work, plain living, and high thinking. 



A conception of the rate at which facilities of communication have been de- 

 veloped during the past two hundred years may he obtained from the statement 

 that in the seventeenth century it required fifteen days to go by diligence from 

 Paris to Marseilles ; in 1782, the time had been shortened to eight days ; in 1814, 

 to five days, by mail-post ; in 1840, to three days; and in 1889, to fourteen hours. 

 In 1830, the voyage from Marseilles to Algiers occupied ninety-six hours ; in 1857, 

 forty-eight hours; in 1877, thirty-eight hours; in 1887, twenty-eight hours; in 

 1889, twenty-four hours ; and it is expected to be accomplished, by two boats that 

 are to be built, in twenty-two hours. 



