196 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



go into a little town on Saturday. In the afternoon when the 

 train comes in I see a fellow come in with a long coat and a high 

 satchel and step off the train; he shakes hands with everybody on 

 the platform and inquires how things have been going since he 

 was last here — about two weeks or a month before. Well, that 

 is a preacher. I believe this is one of the saddest things in our 

 rural church work. I believe that it is doing more to keep the 

 churches of the small towns and country communities, the church 

 people. Christian people, from getting together, and it is also 

 widening the gap that is already existing between them. Why? 

 A preacher is a man and is like other men; he has to have a job, 

 and if he comes into that town to serve a little church on one 

 Sunday a month he has to preach a whole lot of denominational- 

 ism to those people to hold his job. If he did not some would 

 say that the town had another fellow preaching about like that, 

 and so would want only one man. But by talking denomina- 

 tionalism and all the other "isms" belonging to this particular 

 sect, don't you see it keeps up a strained condition and keeps the 

 neighbor from getting in touch with his neighbors in spiritual 

 matters. This teaches me this fact: The most insidious enemy 

 to country life development maintained by the church is the non- 

 resident minister. The man may be all right, but the system is all 

 wrong. I cannot get anywhere with that kind of a system. 

 Churches that are served in this fashion do not flourish, do 

 not grow. 



The Community's Obligation to the Church. — On the other 

 hand, the people of the community owe to the church a united 

 support. One of the things to speak of particularly is that you 

 owe a maintenance, a decent maintenance, to your pastor. 

 Don't call a man into your midst and then starve him out and 

 expect good work. It has been said that the farmer is a stingy 

 man. I would not say that of all farmers. I have a great deal 

 better opinion of farmers than that. I believe the farmer is a 

 careful business man; he has to be careful because of the liveli- 

 hood he has to get out of the soil and because of the conditions 

 prevailing about him, and sometimes he has a narrow view of 

 things. But on the other hand, I insist that the farmer owes 

 the pastor who comes into his community and builds up an 

 institution of good in that community at least a decent main- 

 tenance. If you want the pastor to be a man treat him as a 

 man and do not pay him a smaller salary, as in some instances 

 you do, than the hired man is getting on the farm. Don't do 



