206 Missouri Agricultural Report, 



strength enough left after they have done the necessary work 

 to engage much in any activities in the community. So in these 

 campaigns of one kind or another, to help the people, you must 

 be careful to plan them at seasons of the year when it is possible 

 for the country people to engage in them. Now the winter 

 season, for instance, when our country folk have more leisure, 

 is the right time to enter into these. aggressive campaigns for 

 different things in the community. 



There is a very sad tale told of a prayer meeting, a midweek 

 prayer meeting, that was conducted in a parish I serve, or had 

 been tried to be conducted, of a minister and two faithful elders 

 coming together on Wednesday evening. The prayer meeting 

 had dwindled down to just those faithful three, and it is said 

 they would sit on the porch on nice nights, on the nice summer 

 nights, and they would talk and pray and declare the common- 

 walk people of the community were godless, because they would 

 not come to these prayer meetings and they needed a revela- 

 tion. So they got an evangelist to come at a good deal expense 

 and they had some speech-making. The prayer meetings were 

 a little better attended after that, but it was not long until they 

 dwindled down to the faithful three. 



Now that is a city institution, the midweek prayer meeting, 

 and here is the mistake we have been making in the country for 

 a long time, our country people have listened to discussions on 

 city topics by city people. It used to be you hardly ever saw 

 anything on the program, any topic that was distinctly rural, 

 and our good rural people have listened to those city discussions 

 and they go home and try to put them into operation, when they 

 are not at all adapted to rural conditions. I contend the mid- 

 week prayer meeting for the average rural community is not a 

 practicable thing. In the first place, it is almost impossible for 

 them to come together for a midweek prayer meeting, so the 

 simple thing to do is to plan the prayer at times when the people 

 can come together. 



Now, in working along this line, we found in the first place 

 that fully ninety per cent of the people of the congregation were 

 brought under the influence of united prayer simply by planning 

 the prayer at times when it was possible for the people to come 

 together. It was a very common thing to open the socials with 

 a devotional service, or after the young people had had their 

 play, to gather around an instrument, if in a home or in a church, 

 and close the evening by singing some hymns and having a 



