164 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



uplift the Church of Christ must have her diaconate, 

 and maintain it until all ideals have risen to her plane. 



And the conditions of the rural community to-day, 

 in failing to provide for so many human needs that 

 those whom God designed to dwell in the country are 

 fleeing thence, constitute an emphatic call to the church 

 to become institutional in regard to every unanswered 

 rural human need, until she heal country life. 



"It goes without saying that much of what we call 

 social service ought not to be necessary. It may seem 

 a derogation from the spiritual mission of the church 

 to engage in the efforts to secure the justice, the effi- 

 ciency, the better conditions of life and work, the wide 

 opportunities for individual and social development 

 which it is the desire of voluntary social agencies to 

 bring about. But until actual provision is made by the 

 state or other agencies for the prevention of the evils 

 and the meeting of the needs which are helping to pro- 

 duce the social unrest of our day, the church must 

 stand by the work, just as in former ages she stood by 

 the almsgiving and the ministration to individuals 

 which have resulted in so many functions of our pre- 

 sent governments hospitals, alms-houses, schools and 

 the like. When government or other agencies shall 

 have assumed the new obligations which new social and 

 economic conditions are forcing on us, then the church 

 may relinquish her share in the work and press on to 

 some other worthy task."* Then shall the Diaconate 

 be set free for the duties of the Apostolate, and a new 

 stage be reached in the spiritual life of man. 



* " A Social Service Programme for the Parish." The Joint 

 Commission on Social Service of the Protestant Episcopal 

 Church. 



