RUEAL DEPLETION 21 



reveals that we have as vital and as urgent a problem 

 of the country as of the city. It is the counterpart and 

 correlative of the city problem. And though its moral 

 outcrop is not so immediately obvious as in the case of 

 the city, it is in its ultimate issues the more funda- 

 mental of the two. 



We shall consider in our first chapter the depletion 

 of rural life in three of its dimensions, physical, social, 

 and moral, as seen in the numerical decline in popula- 

 tion, the social strain upon the home and all the insti- 

 tutions of society, and the moral dangers incident to the 

 situation. 



The first or physical dimension, numerical decrease, 

 is found throughout large districts of country. Let us 

 glance first at some local illustrations. 



Within a recent seven-year period seventy-six young 

 persons left my pastoral charge for the cities or the 

 West. A good proportion were from among our best- 

 church workers. They were not lost to the cause. 

 One, for instance, trained in Christian work in the 

 Young People's Guild at Spencerville, was the means 

 of founding two congregations at Francis and its vicin- 

 ity, in Saskatchewan. They were not lost to the cause, 

 but what did their removal not mean to the church in 

 Spencerville ? 



Some few years ago a young Spencerville farmer said 

 to me, " When my father bought out the land we are 

 now working he displaced thirty-eight persons. We are 

 four, with four constant hired help." The change has 

 meant no economic loss. While we were conversing 

 he was on his way to Montreal in charge of two carloads 

 of stall-fed cattle for the British market, all from his 

 father's barns. Farming had improved under con- 



