Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 299 



about ministerial supply and about church finances as well. The 

 average parish of that size would include about 350 people — not 

 too many certainly for a church, but instead we have three or four 

 churches within reach of the same farm and such a division of 

 interest that none of them is able to support a resident pastor. 

 Thus they suffer from malnutrition. Why do we have this state of 

 affairs? Because we each love our denomination better than we 

 love our common Christian obligations to the community. Perhaps 

 this is because we have not been brought face to face with the 

 social obligations of religion as we have to the intellectual. Our 

 creeds have been matters of belief, more than of action. There is 

 more in our common faith than, in any one of our creeds. In the 

 great essential things that make for life we are agreed, why cannot 

 we work together for them? I believe intensely in a community 

 church in place of a denominational church. Nor do I think we will 

 be called upon to give up any conviction to have a community church. 

 Let each keep his own creed, but let us organize our community 

 church for that Christian service in which we all agree, then by 

 doing the will, we will more perfectly learn the doctrine. That was 

 the advice of the great founder of the church universal. I supply a 

 little country church thirteen miles from the railroad. Everybody 

 goes — there is nowhere else to go. They come to hear me once a 

 month, then go to hear three other men the other three Sundays. 

 They all look alike to me, and to save my life I cannot tell from their 

 lives which is the "ist" and which is the "ian." They are all good 

 Christians, at least one church furnishes just as good Christians as 

 does another, but we have no organized Christian life in that 

 community capable of meeting community needs, and not one of 

 the four churches is fulfilling its obligation to the community. We 

 do not fight each other any more, we are working under a white 

 flag; bye and bye we will raise the Master's red flag of the cross 

 and will unite in our common faith and for a common task in that 

 community, for after all we are all His disciples and the things that 

 divide us do not in a single case reflect any moral differences. 



There are four things, it seems to me, that we need to put 

 stress upon in our efforts to better country life and to keep the boys 

 on the farm. One is to have a community church and a resident 

 pastor. The second is a country school that trains for country 

 life and for farm interests more than for scholastic promotion and 

 literary ideals. If we wish the children to love the country we 

 must teach them to appreciate the country as much at least as they 



