346 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



and the towns have therefore to be continuously recruited from 

 the country, the Christianizing of the rural districts would even- 

 tually mean the Christianizing of the towns also. But, vice versa, 

 if non-Christians should become the better farmers, by reason 

 of some false philosophy or supercilious attitude toward mate- 

 rial wealth and economic achievement on the part of the church, 

 then this would eventually become a non-Christian country for 

 the same reason. 



But if, as a third possibility, there should be no percepti- 

 ble difference between Christians and non-Christians as to their 

 knowledge and adaptability, or as to their general fitness to sur- 

 vive and possess the earth, fitness, that is, as determined by 

 nature's standard rather than by some artificial standard of our 

 own devising, the result would be that Christians would re- 

 main indefinitely a mere sect in the midst of a non-Christian or 

 nondescript population. The only way of avoiding this rather 

 unsatisfactory situation would be to force the whole population 

 into a nominal Christianity by military force. But, assuming 

 that physical force is not to be used, and that the ordinary 

 economic forces are to operate undisturbed by such violent 

 means, then the contention will hold. This is what is likely to 

 happen if certain religious leaders should succeed in identify- 

 ing Christianity with millinery, with emotionalism, with abstract 

 formulae respecting the invisible world, or with mere loyalty to 

 an organization, rather than with rational conduct. By rational 

 conduct is meant that kind of conduct which conserves human 

 energy and enables men to fulfill their mission of subduing the 

 earth and ruling over it, which enables them to survive in the 

 struggle with nature. This is the essence of all genuine morality. 



If the significance of this law is once clearly understood, 

 there is little danger that the church will make the wrong 

 choice or hesitate long in making the right one. It would at 

 once decide to make better farmers of its rural members than 



