PROBLEMS OF RURAL SOCIAL LIFE 353 



IT: is said that the great problem of the country church to-day 

 is that of an adequate support of the ministry. How can the 

 ministry be adequately supported ? One obvious answer is to 

 reduce the number of churches, where there are too many 

 churches for the community to support. This is a good answer ; 

 perl laps that is the easiest way, but it is the second-best way. 

 Another way is to build up the community in order that it may 

 furnish adequate membership and adequate support for all the 

 churches. This may be a harder way, but where it is not im- 

 possible it is the best. 



There was a time when the finance ministers of European 

 governments were hard pressed to provide a revenue for the ex- 

 penses of the state. They eventually found that the best way to 

 get adequate support for the state was to increase the prosperity 

 of the country. When they began studying how to make the 

 country prosperous, the science of national economy, or political 

 economy, was born. When they who are charged with the task 

 of raising money for the support of the churches and the ministry 

 awaken to the fact that the best way to secure adequate support 

 is to make the parish more prosperous, the science of parish 

 economy will be born. This will be, for our rural churches, 

 as fortunate an event as the birth of political economy was for 

 modern governments. 



Of course there should be continued emphasis, in the teach- 

 ings of the church and the pulpit, upon the plain economic vir- 

 tues of industry, sobriety, thrift, practical scientific knowledge, 

 and mutual helpfulness ; but much more emphasis than heretofore 

 should be placed on the last two. Practical scientific knowledge 

 of agriculture and mutual helpfulness in the promotion of the 

 welfare of the parish are absolutely essential, and unless the 

 churches can help in this direction they will remain poor and 

 inadequately supported. For those who think that the church 

 should hold itself above the work of preaching the kind of 



