h in harmony with the tillage of the
soil by science. Like the farm households about it, the church will
possess a large wealth of tradition, but the church of the scientific
farmer must be open to the teachings of science and must be responsive,
intelligent and alert in the intellectual leadership of the people.

A church of this sort is at West Nottingham, Maryland. The minister Rev.
Samuel Polk, had been discouraged by the inattention of his people to
his message. He had come to feel that this is an unbelieving age and had
surrendered himself to the steadfast performance of his duties, the
preaching of the truth faithfully and the ministry to his people so far
as they would receive it. In addition he had the task of tilling forty
acres of land which belongs to the church. This he was doing faithfully,
but without much intelligent interest.

An address on the country church in an agricultural college sent him
home with new ideas. He saw that his life as a farmer and as a preacher
had to be made one. He determined to preach to farmers and to till his
land as an example of Christian husbandry. He began as a scholar by
studying the scientific use of his land. He found at once that the
farmers about him were forced to study the tillage of their soil,
because it had been exhausted of fertility by methods of farming no
longer profitable. In the first year the preacher raised, by means of a
dust mulch through a dry summer, a crop of one hundred and seventy-five
bushels of potatoes. Meantime his preaching had been enlivened with new
illustrations and he was enabled to enforce, to the amazement of his
hearers, new impressions with old truths. The Scripture teaching which
had become dull and scholastic became live and modern, as he preached
the Old Testament to a people who were recognizing the sacredness of
land. His audiences began to increase. His influence on his people very
shortly passed bounds and reserves. When at the end of the season his
potato crop came in, the farmers gave sign of recognizing his leadership
as a farmer and as a preacher. Within a year this man had taken a place
as a first citizen, which no one else in the community could hold.
Because he was a preacher he could become the leading authority upon
farming and because he must needs be a farmer he found it possible to
preach with greater acceptance.

This pastor gave up the methods of bookish preparation for preaching. He
preached as the Old Testament