278 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



REPORT OF SESSION DEVOTED TO DISCUSSION 

 OF THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 



THE CHURCH AND THE FARMER. 



(Reverend Clair S. Adams, Decatur, Illinois, Field Assistant, Department of Cliurch 

 and Country Life of tlie Board of Home Missions of Presbyterian Cliurch.) 



Friends, I am glad to be with you this afternoon. Ten years 

 ago had I looked forward to this day and realized that country 

 preachers would be asked to come to this great Stats University 

 and uphold the country church, which at that time seemed to be 

 left out of all consideration and thought, I certainly would have 

 believed I was dreaming. And I am glad to live in these days in 

 which we begin to realize that we are improving and getting back 

 to the fountain head of our civilization, the farm, and to rejoice 

 that the church, the school, the agricultural college, and the news- 

 paper in the country town are beginning to find each other. In- 

 stead of living the solitary lives as we did back yonder on the farm, 

 going about our daily tasks and going out on Sunday afternoons to 

 country appointments, utterly alone and leading a lonely life, we are 

 constantly awakening and beginning to realize that this glitter and 

 glint of materialism that has almost intoxicated the world in the 

 growth of the big things has missed its mark. We realize, too, that 

 we have bsen missing the height of our civilization because we 

 have been neglecting the open country, God's open country, from 

 which will ever come the influence and the streams that have kept 

 pure the life of this old sinful world; and so I esteem that it is a 

 privilege that I have in being invited to talk to you. 



I am told that this is your first gathering. I want to congratu- 

 late you. I lately attended a meeting similar to this at Ames, Iowa, 

 and I also attended two or three in other states before that, and you 

 are to be congratulated heartily on your attendance here, for I do 

 not think that the attendance at those meetings after having them 

 two or three years, equaled the attendance that we have here this 

 afternoon. 



I am glad to learn that we are taking up as two of the first 

 topics of the first day of this Farmers' Week, the rural church and 

 the country school. I believe we are putting the emphasis in the 

 right place, as I believe the country church is the most important 

 institution that we have to lift up mankind toward better things, 



