286 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



well as the church you are supporting in town, and if you do not, 

 you will see the price of your land go down. The country church 

 is, as I said a moment ago, the institution for the uplifting of people 

 towards the vision of things that makes clean minds, into an atmos- 

 phere of fellowship and sympathy. It is this kind of society that 

 puts the price on things, and it is not the bare things themselves 

 which come out of the ground. 



I think in speaking of this I should tell you of an experience 

 that happened to me not long ago. One of the leaders in our 

 church was from a little country town. I went to see him, went 

 into his bank, and he said to me, *'Mr. Adams, I want to show you 

 what we have been doing back here in our director's room." I 

 went to the room and found it fitted up elegantly with beautiful 

 furniture. I turned to him and said, "Elder, when will it be that 

 we can have such things and such surroundings to work with in the 

 country church, when will that time come?" He hung his head — 

 we have the same old pews. Here he has these fine things for his 

 business. You have fine machinery and think more of it and of 

 the shelter of your hogs and cattle than you do for the moral and 

 spiritual welfare of your boys and girls. I am just talking brass 

 tacks this afternoon. And that condition will continue as long as 

 we have hundreds of dollars for automobiles, and pennies and 

 nickels for the Lord. 



I want to speak just a moment or two longer. I want to tell 

 of what we can do in the country church. I want to say that it is 

 because of the country church that these city churches can do some- 

 thing. They ought to do a whole lot for the country church, for if 

 it were not for our country churches the city church would soon die. 

 If any of your people are from the city you put that down because 

 it is true. You take any of our church records, I do not care which 

 one it is, and you go down through the columns and notice the addi- 

 tions in membership. I suppose you have the same columns we 

 have. One column denotes the members that came in the church 

 by confession of faith and another column indicates those that have 

 come in by certificates from other churches. If you take any city 

 church of any denomination, I don't care what it is, and go over 

 the records you will find that the number that came in by letter 

 is larger many times than the number that came in by confession of 

 faith. Whereas in the country church you will find very rarely 

 where people were received by letter but they have to go out and 

 teach them the life of God and bring them to Him by confession. I 

 was out in Hutchinson, Kan., not long ago to a state agricultural 



