tinctively
religious center of the neighborhood, but also the social, the
intellectual, and the aesthetic center. No doubt there is untold power
in such an idea. No doubt the country church has a peculiarly rich and
inviting field for community service. It would be gratifying if every
country pastor would study the possibilities of this idea and endeavor
to make an experiment with it. I have, however, a supplemental
suggestion, at this point. It is not possible to make of every rural
church an institutional church. The church is notably a conservative
institution. The rural church is in this respect "to the manner born."
Rural church members are likely to be ultra-conservative, especially as
to means and methods. Even if this were not true, we might well lament
any attempt to establish a social-service church that endeavored to make
the church the sole motive power in rural regeneration, that failed to
recognize, to encourage, and to co-operate with the other social forces
which we have mentioned. But if every country pastor cannot have a
social-service church, is it not possible that every country church
shall have a social-service pastor? There are some things the church
cannot _do_; there is nothing it may not through its pastor _inspire_.
There are some uses to which the country church cannot be put; there are
no uses to which the country pastor may not be put--as country pastors
know by experience. The pastor ought to be an authority on social
salvation as well as on personal salvation. He ought to be guide,
philosopher, and friend in community affairs as well as in personal
affairs. Is he not indeed the logical candidate for general social
leadership in the rural community? He is educated, he is trained to
think, he is supposed to have broad grasp of the meaning of affairs, he
usually possesses many of the qualities of leadership. He is
_relatively_ a fixture. He is less transient than the teacher. He is the
only man in the community whose tastes are sociological and who is at
the same time a paid man--all this aside from the question of the
munificence of his stipend. Let us then have the social-service rural
church if we can; but let us have the social-service rural pastor at all
hazards, as the first term in the formula for solving the sociological
problem of the country church.

3. Co-operation among rural churches. The manifest lack of co-operation
among churches seems to many laymen to result in a tremendous