160 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



they endured the hardships of that early life. Never- 

 theless, the local country church to-day usually regards 

 itself as an end in itself. If you belong to the church, 

 well and good; if you don't, well and worse from the 

 church point of view. Those in the church are saints; 

 those without are sinners. The success of the church 

 is measured quite largely by the number of its members 

 and the hum of its machinery. But every now and then 

 we find a country pastor or a country congregation that 

 has torn itself away from any such restricted notion as 

 this, and has come to understand what Jesus meant 

 when he remarked: " He that loseth his life, shall 

 find it," and that he referred to groups of Christians 

 as well as to the individual Christian. In other words, 

 when the church thinks chiefly of itself, it grows weak 

 and ineffective. When it thinks chiefly of becoming a 

 pathway to glory to all within its fold, it shrivels. But 

 when it becomes a ministering agency of friendliness 

 and neighborliness and good will to the entire com- 

 munity, then it lives and grows and vitalizes the spirits 

 of men. It is not putting the matter too strongly to 

 say that the country church will regain its leadership in 

 rural affairs only when it applies the community idea to 

 its motives and methods. 



The Health of the Community. Health should be 

 regarded as decidedly a community asset. It is always 

 the individual who is ill, and so the knowledge of home 

 care, food and home nursing should be more wide- 

 spread. But disease really affects the whole commun- 

 ity. It reduces the working power of the community 

 through loss of time and money. The untimely re- 

 moval by death of a strong member of the community 

 produces a loss that the community may never get over. 

 So the teaching of personal hygiene as a part of com- 



