10 



economically sound and effective; intelligent in its manhood and 

 citizenship; socially clean, wholesome and solid; permeated by 

 the religious spirit and motivated by Christian ideals. 



To quote Mr. Tai again: 'The Kingdom of God cannot be 

 easily established unless the Church takes into consideration 

 everything that ultimately relates to men's spiritual life. The 

 ideal for a Church is to make itself a factor in building up as 

 perfect a community as possible. The present difficulty with 

 the church, or rather the great hindrance to the Church's 

 progress, lies in the fact that the Church has preached a great 

 deal, but not done enough in actual production work for the 

 people." 



The Church too is profoundly interested in the total quality 

 of the life of the farming people, how they live, their health, 

 their morals, their complete welfare. This is both end and means 

 so far as the Church is concerned. The Church has a special 

 concern in developing and maintaining the intelligence of the 

 farm people. Christianity is a religion of intelligence not of 

 superstition. Left to itself, the farm village will lag in respect 

 to schools, literacy, progress. Rural life everywhere lacks 

 leadership, incentive, the power of self-direction toward a 

 program of improvement. The remedy lies largely in an 

 adequate education in the farm village. 



It would seem from these considerations fairly clear that 

 the Church cannot make conquering headway in China except 

 as it can master rural China. Also clear that we must recognize 

 the significance of the work of missions among rural folk in 

 China, and on broad lines of economic and social improvement. 

 We realize that the establishment and maintenance of Christian 

 farm villages is essential to the Christianizatiqn of China. Let 

 it be noted, therefore, 



(a) That education is fundamental to other opportunities of 

 development among rural folk. Organization is important, but 

 in its turn depends largely on education. Better farming, 

 better living, better business, all rest ultimately on education. 



(b) Religion itself cannot have full weight among these 

 rural folk except as the farmers are fairly intelligent and 

 reasonably prosperous. 



(c) But this education must be intimately and vitally related 

 to the life of the people all of their life, as they have to live it 

 from day to day. 



