small open auditoriuiii. One Church, the M. E. S. of Rockville, has 

 a special 12-room Sunday-school building erected three years ago at a 

 cost of $3,000. Its Sunday-school is thriving. Other buildings, put 

 up within recent years, have been planned with this need of separate class 

 rooms in mind. But the proportion of the total number is still very small. 

 The entire amount invested in church property for these 86 churches 

 is $364,757, an average of $4,395 per church. This is nearly three times 

 the amount invested in school property. All the churches together 

 have about 110 acres of ground; the average for the country churches is 

 about 2>^ acres per church. Twenty-eight of the church lots are fenced; 

 56 have good shade trees. In general the grounds of the country churches 

 receive poor care; lawns not well kept; grass and weeds around the 

 church uncut; trees un trimmed; whole appearance rather unkempt. 

 The town and village churches, for the most part, fare better. Thirty-one 

 churches have cemeteries adjoining them . Twenty-nine have parsonages . 



(d) The Working Force 



There are 44 ministers working regularly in the county, of whom 39 

 are Protestant and 5 Catholic. There are three churches, Friend and 

 Christian Science, which do not have regular paid ministers; eight other 

 churches are at the present time pastorless. The 39 Protestant minis- 

 ters are in charge of 75 churches. Fifteen are able to devote their entire 

 time to single churches; 13 have two churches each; 3 have three churches; 

 7 have four churches; 1 has five. Several have churches in adjoining 

 counties. Here we see the remnants of the old system of farming out 

 churches on circuits, which has always constituted the great weakness 

 of the country church. The circuit system means the lessening of the 

 efficiency of the church as a working force. Here the conditions are 

 better than in the majority of country communities, but they are still 

 far from ideal. He is an optimist indeed who hopes that the consolidated 

 church will come with the consolidated school; yet this would undoubt- 

 edly be the solution of many of the churches' most urgent problems. 



Nineteen of the Protestant ministers live in towns, while twenty live 

 in small villages or the open country. All but ten live within the limits 

 of their respective parishes. But the man who has from two to five 

 churches has a large parish. Some of his churches must be without a 

 resident minister. In point of fact, 26 of the 75 churches over which 

 these men have charge have resident pastors, and 49 are without a 

 resident minister. Of course it will be said that many of these churches 

 are quite unable to support a minister on full time, which is quite true. 

 But again the answer is the same. Some sort of consolidation is neces- 

 sary before the church will be able to give the best service to the country 

 community. 



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