240 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



country life situation. I assume in the beginning (bat (he mission of 

 the cburcb is to preach the gospel. What 1 have to say therefore is 

 aside from that (piestion. It is sometimes said that the school is going 

 to be the center of rural communities. 1 doubt it. I believe that some 

 institution of religion is going to be one of the social centers in the 

 end. That you may get my thought, let me say that whatever our 

 theory or philosophy of life may be, everyone of us begins where 

 Genesis begins, 'in the beginning, God." Well then, if the earth 

 is God's handiwork, it is holy; and if the earth is holy then all the 

 things that grow out of it they also are holy; and if the materials are 

 holy, then all the good, honest, constructive elfort put into the develop- 

 ment of materials is holy. Now, no farmer in the last analysis, owns 

 his land, not even in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. A man does 

 not take it with him into the next world. Society, that is, govern- 

 ment, allows a man as the agent of society to hold a piece of land, and 

 for two things: that he may make a living from it, and that he may 

 help the rest of us to live. He produces more wheat than he wants, 

 and the loaves of bread are for the rest of mankind. The remainder 

 of us cannot live on the earth unless the farmer produces more than he 

 wants. 



Farming is a quasi-public business, and will be so recognized in 

 time to come. The earth is holy, and it belongs to all the people. The 

 farmer is the agent of society, or the people, to use land for the good 

 of us all, as well as for the good of himself. No man has a right to 

 skin the surface of the earth. Good farming is at the foundation a 

 religious business. No, it may not have been necessary in times 

 past, when society has been unadjusted, for persons to skin the land 

 in order to be able to live. If so, society has been at fault. That will 

 not be so true in the future. Every man who tills land owes a respon- 

 sibility to society and to God for the use that he makes of it. Now, 

 farming is at the bottom of our whole economics and social structure, 

 because it provides the materials of subsistence. It is more important 

 that the farmer has a religious reaction than that any other man what- 

 ever have such a reaction. Now, every person is fundamentally re- 

 ligious. The religious impulse must be developed or educated. It is 

 the function of some organization to develop it. It is at present the 

 function of the organization called the church. Here I come to the 

 rural church. The contact of the rural church with the agricultural 

 situation, if it is to meet its responsibilities, is absolutely fundamental 

 and it cannot be evaded. 



Now I hojie that I have put into your minds a conception of the ele- 

 mentary character and position of the man who stands on the land. I 

 am not complimenting the farmers. They do not need compliments. 

 The time was when people complimented farmers. The time has come 

 when public men criticize farmers just as they criticize anybody else, 

 and the farmer does not resent it. What we need to do is to tell the 

 truth and let the situation work itself out. 



