14 INTKODUCTION 



expression to it through the wise use of our natural 

 resources. Farming is gathering sunshine, forging 

 wealth out of chaos, — gathering and humanizing into 

 wealth for the service of the race the great unused 

 powers of nature. It is one of the great fundamental 

 occupations, and therefore the interests of the men who 

 follow it are worth conserving. We have laid out our 

 school system — that is, our rural public schools that we 

 boast so much about — to train a boy to read and write 

 and figure as the essential means of conserving and 

 training for use his God-given powers and obligations 

 to gather sunshine. Maybe the preparation does not 

 qualify for the job, and the boy goes to town where he 

 will find some job to suit his training. 



Why has the Young Men's Christian Association gone 

 on faster and more widely than some other organiza- 

 tions ? It is not attempting to save men's souls apart 

 from their bodies; it is not attempting to help men by 

 appealing to their intellect only. By inclusion of the 

 body, mind and spirit, with training for his occupation, 

 the whole man may be saved into faith in a Christ who, 

 as the perfect example, was Himself trained that way. 



And when we men who are responsible have done 

 these things then we shall still be unprofitable servants ; 

 because no man can achieve more than a fraction of the 

 service that will pay for what he came into, all unearned 

 by his own labor or life. I wish the churches out in 

 the rural districts ever-abounding success in making 

 these things known to the youth — God's partner in 

 the new earth ; that it is worth while to be consciously 

 a partner in the oare of old Mother Earth, as a home 

 for the race, bearing fine crops, with weeds suppressed, 

 diseases and vile things under the restraining control 



