STUDENTS AND THE RURAL PROBLEM 217 



same viewpoint as those on the foreign mission field. 

 The work itself is the foremost consideration. 



If you make such a life choice, gentlemen, you will 

 be but walking in the footsteps of noble exemplars. 

 Oberlin declined a chaplaincy in the proudest regiment 

 of France to become pastor of Ban de la Roche, nor 

 could even the request of the Academy of France induce 

 hinl to leave his country parsonage. Of George Her- 

 bert, who united in one person the saintliest character, 

 the richest culture, the ripest scholarship, the finest 

 genius, and the noblest blood of the England of his 

 day, it was said, " He himself became a country minister 

 that he might show how that sphere could become a field 

 fit for intelligent, energetic, and stately living." Charles 

 Kingsley, a brilliant and versatile genius he was 

 seiiior optime in mathematics and won first-rank honors 

 in classics at Cambridge at the age of twenty-two 

 became curate of Eversley, a country parish where 

 scarcely one person could read or write, and, though 

 poet and novelist, popular lecturer and university pro- 

 fessor, canon of Westminster Abbey, and chaplain to 

 Queen Victoria, there he ministered throughout his 

 life. It was said in the hearing of an American bishop 

 that -the time would come when it would be as great an 

 honor to be a successful country minister as to be a 

 city minister. He replied that the time was already 

 here, and had been since Charles Kingsley put Eversley 

 on the map of the world. There are places whose 

 names are yet unknown to fame. 



It follows, as our next point, that there should be 

 fuller attention given to preparation for the special 

 tasks of the country ministry. I have no slightest sug- 

 gestion to offer here as to how this College, which has 



