258 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 



country of ours. Our fathers realized that the 

 youth educated without the training of the church 

 was like a rudderless ship upon life's sea, where 

 he became an easy prey to temptation and easily 

 succumbed to vice and immorality which abound 

 in plenty in the weak church community. 



George Frederick Wells has well said, "The 

 American farmer was at one time preeminently re- 

 ligious. Whether he lived as the child of the Puri- 

 tan theocracy or as the patron of early Virginian 

 aristocracy, he tilled the soil in order that he might 

 worship God and rear his children in the fear of 

 the Lord. Whether he cleared the forest under 

 Penn, the patriarch of piety, or planted his wind- 

 mills by the steeples of New Amsterdam, his fire- 

 side was his synagogue and his temple the house 

 of prayer. ' ' 



And so we might add that the children of this 

 American farmer went out from the old homestead 

 hallowed by a Christian association that followed 

 them to the city, and that led them to found the 

 city church that made the cities a safe place in 

 which to live, and extended the missionary spirit 

 that is evangelizing the world. 



This preeminent religious faith of the early 

 American farmer gave to his children an inherit- 

 ance more valuable than the other education he 

 gave them, or the dollars he left for their inherit- 

 ance. It gave them that sturdiness of character 

 essential for the enjoying of the higher and better 

 life. 



You cannot truthfully say that any of these chil- 

 dren when they had left the old home nest forgot 

 the religious training of the old home. Some of 



