186 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



not oblivious but regardless of the fact that they take 

 their families from homes of comfort to live for an 

 indefinite period deprived of satisfactory home sur- 

 roundings. And a chief note of the movement from 

 the country is the making light of responsibility towards 

 the home, towards parents who are left to carry on the 

 farm alone. The church should lead her sons to say : 



Oh, fame may heap its measure, 



And hope its blossoms strew, 

 And proud ambition call us, 



And honor urge us through; 

 But kinsfolk, kinsfolk, 



My thought is all for you! 

 No strange and lovely countries 



Men venture forth to view, 

 No power and gifts and glory 



Are worth one heart-beat true; 

 And kinsfolk, kinsfolk, 



My heart is all for you!* 



But the church should do more than this. " Home " is 

 not a static conception. We have passed lately from 

 what we regarded as a static world into what we know to 

 be a dynamic world from a world of assorted things 

 into a world of advancing processes. The tasks of the 

 home itself are changing. A book upon " The Chris- 

 tian Home," by Dr. John Hall, popular twenty-five 

 years ago, does not meet the needs of to-day. Changes 

 have taken place in two directions; functions once de- 

 volving solely upon the home have been relegated to 

 other agencies, while the socializing of life has multi- 



* " Northland Lyrics," by W. C. Roberts, Theodore Roberta, 

 and Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald. 



