RURAL AMERICA 



country. At a county fair held by a rural county in Septem- 

 ber, 1915, a group of investigators counted on the grounds 

 1,750 automobiles at one time on the big day. The farmer 

 has come to regard the automobile as not only a luxury but 

 a necessity in the life of his family. (3) Attractive town and 

 city churches with excellent music and eloquent pastors. 

 Within recent years, hundreds and thousands of town and 

 city churches have increased their membership at the expense 

 of the country churches. Today there is hardly a town or 

 city church that does not have its growing rural membership. 

 It is only during the past decade that special attention has been 

 given to a study of crowds and the results of the study are 

 amazing. Although much can be accomplished by small 

 groups, yet there is more inspiration when the company is 

 large than when only two or three are gathered together. 



Now, if this problem is to be solved, the first need is a 

 more perfect cooperation among the individuals, churches, 

 organizations, institutions, societies, associations, etc., that 

 are bending their efforts to the renaissance of the rural 

 church. It will be impossible at this point to go into details, 

 but a word might be said about the denominations that have 

 country churches. Not only should each of these have a 

 department, whose whole time is devoted to the work of the 

 rural church, but they should work out a plan of cooperation. 

 Denominational jealousies must be eliminated, and denomina- 

 tions must be broad enough to solve the problems of each 

 country community in a spirit of concession. As long as 

 denominations are more concerned about the welfare of 

 individual churches than about the welfare of communities, 

 so long will the solution of the country church problem be 

 delayed. " Loyalty to one's own church is surely a virtue. 

 But when one's loyalty to his church exceeds his loyalty to the 

 Kingdom, then a law of the Kingdom is broken and some 

 one's life is broken with it." Reorganizations and new align- 

 ments are needed on a big scale in the rural field. 



The rural church situation is somewhat different in different 

 parts of the country. In New England and the Middle States 



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