86 The Rural Church and the Young People 



THE COUNTRY MINISTER 



There is at present not a little promise that there 

 may be developed throughout the country a new 

 type of country-dwelling ministers. It is certainly a 

 logical position for the effective religious worker to 

 assume; namely, that of actually dwelling among 

 those whom he is attempting to serve. He acquires 

 an intimate knowledge of their problems, their 

 point of view, including the status of their individual 

 beliefs and prejudices. 



As an example of what the country minister can 

 achieve one needs to read an account of the splendid 

 work of the Rev. Mathew B. McNutt of Plain- 

 field, Illinois. Mr. McNutt was called to this charge 

 in 1900 when a fresh graduate from a Presbyterian 

 seminary. At the time of his call there was in 

 the locality a small dead or nominal church member- 

 ship and an occasional weak, ineffective service 

 held in the little old church of fifty years' standing. 

 This devoted and far-seeing man got down among 

 the people with whom he settled, made a careful 

 survey of the economic, the social, and the religious 

 life of the place, and began his wonderful work of 

 reconstructing all this. The ultimate purpose was 

 the improvement of the spiritual well-being. He 

 organized singing schools, granges, literary and de- 

 bating societies, sewing societies, and clubs of vari- 

 ous other sorts, all as a means of awakening the 



