236 EUEAL LIFE IN CANADA 



country communities. The prize was awarded to 

 Charles Roads, for his excellent volume, " Rural Chris- 

 tendom," a work of solid worth. 



The Young Men's Christian Association, which had 

 already done so much for city life, began work for the 

 country in 1889, when Mr. Robert Weidensall origin- 

 ated the " County Work." Under this plan of organ- 

 ization the county town becomes the headquarters of a 

 secretary. The secretary seeks to reach every hamlet in 

 his county and to be in touch with every congregation. 

 The county secretary is usually an agricultural college 

 graduate. The departments are the same as those found 

 so necessary and successful in the city educational, 

 physical, social, and religious. Adaptation is sought to 

 the needs and the opportunities of the situation. The 

 educational work, for example, embraces farm book- 

 keeping, house sanitation, crop rotation. The fine work 

 accomplished for the city along athletic and recreational 

 lines is being wisely adapted to rural needs. The Asso- 

 ciation publishes a monthly magazine, Rural Manhood, 

 dealing most helpfully with many of the problems of the 

 rural community, a periodical fitted to render useful 

 service to every country minister. But the Association 

 seeks to do more than employ its own agencies. In 1910 

 a country church conference was called to meet in New 

 York by the Rural Section of the Y. M. C. A. for the 

 purpose of securing a consensus of opinion from church 

 leaders and other authorities on country life as to how 

 there could best be established a basis of co-operation 

 between the church and its supplementary agencies. A 

 most helpful volume, " The Rural Church and Com- 

 munity Betterment," embodies the discussions and 



