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4 THE PRESBYTERIA
THE COUNTRY CHURCH.
One of the most remarkable documents emanating
from a secular source is the report of the Commission
on Country Life appointed by Mr. Roosevelt. It is published
as a Senate document. Its remarkable feature is
the manner in which it deals with the religious side of
the problem of life in the country.
It analyses the fundamental conditions and treats of
them under the heads of knowledge, education, organi
zation, and spiritual forces. In dealing with the latter
it disclaims any desire to give advice to the institutions
of religion or to attempt to dictate their policies, but
declares that any consideration of the problem of rural
life, which would leave out of account the functions and
possibilities of the Church and its related institutions,
would be grossly inadequate, both because the problem
is in its last analysis a moral one and because in the
last development of the individual the great motives
and results are religious and spiritual, and because from
the sociological point of view the Church is fundamentally
a necessary institution in country life, with
such relations, springing from the closer connection
of life and work on the farm, as to make the institutions
and the life react on one another more intimately than
they do in city life.
This is a most philosophical and practical position
to hold, and the commission's grasp of the matter in
the face of the usual attempt on secular sides to eliminate
the religious and spiritual elements altogether
is to be most warmly commended for bravery and faithfulness
to the truth. The Church, the report goes on
to argue, must be a leader in the attempt to idealize
country life.
The desire to avoid giving advice, so clearly given in
the introduction, does not prevent the report making
suggestions in connection with a later section's study
of "The general corrective forces which should be set
in motion." Among these the first that is narrjed is an
?CC i - . ? -
ciiuii in give up tne superfluous church, or churches,
in "over-churched" communities, and a process of cooperation,
not necessarily organic union. Commendation
is given of movements looking towards federation
and effort that puts emphasis not on the Church itself,
but on the work which the Church is to do for all men.
Another suggestion is that the Church he more than
it is now a social center, not so much as a place for
holding social gatherings as a place from which influences
may constantly emanate that will tend to build
up the moral and spiritual tone of the community. Another
is that there he a large extension of the work
of the Young Men's Christian Association in rural districts,
as an ally of the Church. Another is that there
he a proper conception of the position of the eonntrv
pastor, an adequate fitting on his part for the special
conditions of the field, a combination between ministerial
and agricultural training schools to produce such
fitting, and a better support for the ministers in country
charges.
Some of the findings of the commission may hot
commend themselves to the wisdom and experience of
those who are familiar with the situation, but the document
is well worth reading and from its view point
N OF THE SOUTH. April 14, 1909.
must be regarded as a most unusual and frank tribute
to the value of the country church, the opportunity
which it enjoys, and the honor that is to be placed
upon the pastor who holds the responsible strategic
position.
COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
For years the title. Comparative Religion, made an
unfavorable impression. As used by some authors, it
was an assault on the Christian religion. It assumed
the religion of the Nazarene to be only one of many,
to be the product of the evolution of the religions of the
iatcs 01 manKinu, and like them to be without any supernatural
character and divine authority. Like them
it would be subject to development and modification
and give way finally to other expressions of the religious
wants and emotions of men.
It was not to be wondered at that science, reason
seeking orderly statements of facts and relations, grasp
ing at all other departments of human thoughts and experience.
should lay its hand upon the religions of ?he
races and the ages and attempt to ascertain the facts,
origins, growth, relations, and, if possible, the principles
in common of the various forms of religious expression.
Some of the students of comparative relig on
have been wholly irreverent, materialists, rationalists;
rejecting the supernatural, finding only natural evolution.
and hopeless of any divine guidance and help.
Rut there arc others who, with a sincere sympathy
for humanity, have studied the religions of so many
kinds, and have seen in the religion of Christ not onk a
final answer to the questions all men have asked, but
the one supreme revelation from God of a way. of life,
bringing to men grace for the life that now is and glory
for that which is to come.
The study of the religions of the world, some of them
having a lofty reaching up to sun and stars, to light
and air, or seasons and the passing years; some of them
looking down to the winter of the field, and to serpent
and reptiles and poisonous scorpions; some of them
finding spirits to worship, and profitable in all things i
above and beneath; such a study is full of interest and
of the deepest pathos. It is a vast and varied picture
of the soul of man groping blindly for light and peace,
"seeking rest and finding none." In all the range of
human knowledge there is nothing so profoundly pitiful
as the history of the struggles of all the races and
families of mankind to express the wants and desires of
the spirit within, and find rest?answer for the universal
questions?peace for the troubled conscience and hope
of another and happier life.
There is nothing to Ue regretted in the study of comparative
religion, so long as it is the gathering of the
facts of human history and the orderly array of these
facts, with the comparison of all the forms and modes
of worship found among the. divisions of the human
race. On the contrary, there are many things of importance
to he learned, things that reveal universal, moral
and spiritual conditions, and emphatically confirm the
teachings of our revealed religion and the Word of
God. Everywhere, among nations civilized and savage,