290 Missouri Agricidtural Report. 



long continued spiritual ill-health of the church precludes the free 

 operation of the Spirit of God in recruiting the ministry, and in 

 making the ministry effective. A weak church makes a weak 

 ministry, and we need look for no ministry of greater efficiency 

 until it has a better parentage. 



Strange to relate, from these sick and dying churches comes 

 no call of distress. As a rule they do not fear death, and have no 

 particular concern for the future. The people seem to be reconciled 

 to their losses, and the prospect of death occasions no apparent 

 alarm ; as a matter of fact, the people seem not only to be reconciled 

 to, but entirely satisfied with, conditions. 



There are few religious books and magazines, some denomina- 

 tional papers and plenty of Bibles in the homes, but all pass unread 

 and unused. 



This decline of our rural churches is mainly due to the decad- 

 ence of faith, and now is the crux of the whole situation. 



We cannot overestimate the value of the rural community and 

 the rural church when we consider the fact that at the present 

 time about seventy-five per cent of all the leaders in the various 

 activities of life are born and reared in the rural districts and small 

 towns. This is the nation's base of supplies, and from thence 

 comes its leaders — the people who rule the world. 



John R. Mott says: "The cities cannot be relied upon to 

 furnish the Christian leaders of the future. The work of the 

 country church must be carried on with efficiency and power in 

 order to insure the raising up of sufficient Christian forces to culti- 

 vate the city fields." 



To face the fact soberly and honestly, to discern the causes of 

 decay and to apply the remedies — this is the privilege and the 

 imperative duty of all the Lord's people. In the words of Kenyon 

 L. Butterfield "The country church faces a crisis." He also says. 

 "I hold that the problem of the country church is the most im- 

 portant aspect of the rural problem. It touches the highest point 

 in the re-direction of rural life." 



On August 10, 1908, President Roosevelt, in the development 

 of one phase of his conservation policy, appointed a commission on 

 country life. In appointing this commission he had this to say: 

 "No nation has ever achieved permanent greatness unless this 

 greatness was based on the well-being of the great farmer class, 

 the men who live on the soil ; for it is upon their welfare, material 

 and moral, that the welfare of the rest of the nation ultimately 

 rests." 



