3. Worship 



" About seven million years ago, more or less, a stupid 

 slow-moving lizard known to science as brontosaurus roamed 

 the earth. He was thirty feet tall and seventy feet long. He 

 weighty over thirty tons. As he lumbered along, each of his 

 ponderous feet left a track that occupied one square yard. 

 No one knows why he became extinct. Perhaps the earth 

 shrugged her shoulders one day and brontosaurus could not 

 adapt himself to the change. Nature scrapped him." The 

 scrap heap of America is beginning to assume huge propor- 

 tions, since mighty efforts are being put forth everywhere to 

 discard the things not conducive to progress. The country 

 church of yesterday was adequate to the needs of pioneer 

 times, but she has fallen behind and hence must suffer the 

 fate of brontosaurus. Country life experts agree that the 

 present rural church is, to a greater extent than any other 

 rural institution, a remnant of a past civilization. The new 

 country church is an entirely different institution. Although 

 there are many agencies in Rural America that are further- 

 ing the religious welfare of the people, the only one that 

 will be considered under the head of Worship will be the 

 rural church, since others are considered under other 

 headings. 



A. The Rural Church 



The " Old Time Religion " is more strongly entrenched in 

 Rural America than in Urban America : there, many persons 

 consider this earth a place of probation and there, too, the 

 piety of the fathers continues to prevail. Urban America is 

 more inclined to discard the old and adopt the new, regardless 

 of the advice of Alexander Pope : 



Be not the first by whom the new is tried, 

 Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 



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