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September 10, 191.'.
A FAMILY
PAPER.
E D I T O R I A L
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER lo, 1913.
THE RURAL CHURCH
"PROBLEM."
The last Presbyterian General Assembly
voted out the Country
Life portion of the
Home Mission work, tn the saving of a .good
amount of its funds.
Tl:e truth is, there
is nothing peculiar in the Rural Church, tomake
it a separate problem.
The ' country
changes as the cit)- changes with the progress
of irreligion. The Sabbath is not ob­
the few good, sincere Christians who come
served as it should be. The nieans of communication
are improved. The "Sunday
press" furnishes the pabulem of many
professing
Christians here and there.
In the
summer days the motor car takes whole
famihes out on the Sabbath into the country
for a day's outing.
The halt is made on
the road at noon, the auto party taking
his best. He has few books, and has to
cover long distances in his pastoral visits.
lie cannot prepare eloquent s'a-mons up to
the city mark, of course.
But when the
summer people come, half of them stay
away
from church entirely, and say openly
tJwt "he is not worth coming to hear. " That
is bad enough. But some of those who came
are wor-c still, for they laugh at his sermons
and criticise them to our regular members.
The summer colony is extravagant,
careless in behavior and laughs at "village
ideas" of Sabbath. My husband says that
to our church
each summer and really try
to help us along are not enough to make
up fcr the disorganizing
effect of the rest
on the church and the village. Yet I know
most of them are churcb folks at home, 'and
behave themselves dift'erently. Why should
they ibe so different here?'"
¥ ^ ^
lunch in a piece of \\'ood, and the return is
made in the cool of the day. Or tjhe run
TIME AND PATIENCE.
Judge Joseph Buffington, a Federal judge,
is made to some farm house, and dinner is
contributes a week end column to the Pittsburgh
Dispatch. The following is from the
to be provided. The country boarder opens
up the way for city friends to come out, and
paper of August 23. It ought to be helpful
spend the day. In one case we knov.', several
to us lin testimony bearing. We are
automobile parties came to a farm, wliere
tempted to yield here and there, for immediate
popularity:
friends were boarding, and the parties, unloiown
to the farm people, camped in the
"A little reflection shows that minorities
woods near the house, the children invading are often the people's safeguards, that time
the spring house. This Sabbath company and experience are needed to indicate a
were not welcomed. In many cases tliey minority's view, indeed, that those great
are made welcome. Country families aniong words, 'government of the people, by the
people and for the people' had, in the mind
themselves turn the day into a day of visiting,
first among their kindred. Thus the
of Lincoln, a meaning far deeper than the
mere words convey. For, mark you, those
way is open to other visitors, for wdien it
is found that the church is not frequented,
words were used by him on a higher plane
than a mere question of majority. He called
then the door is open for visitors. The his countrymen to 'here highly resolve' and
truth is, the problem is one. Nothing is that 'under God' government of the people.
by the people and for the people should not
gained by converting the church building
perish. And what was this highly resolved
into a social centre. There is enough of
purpose of Lincoln ? His own experience
social life, in the conventions, in the lodges. tells the story, for Lincoln was a man not
the fraternities and sororities. What is needed
for both city and country is a revival never was any more direct appeal to the
of majorities, but of minorities.' There
of religion, attendance on the services of the judgment of the people than the great
question which Ahiraham Lincoln submitted
Sabbath, and on the week-day social fellowship
meeting—a regard for religion.
to the people of Illinois in his contest with
Judge Douglass. From one end of the State
S: * *
to another, with an absence of all passion,
The city summer exodus has a great rcspensibility
here. Priscilla Leonard' write?
with an appeal to reason, with every wealth
nf light and instruction and intense earnestness,
Lincoln presented the great issue of all
to the Christian Instructor of August 19:
ages to the people of Illinois for their
'A minister's wife, in a small town among
determination. But when the votes came
the beautiful Northern hills, once said to the the great champion of human liberty found
writer with heartfelt earnestness: 'We
the majority, swept away by the prevailing
spirit of the hour was against him. Lincoln,
oread the summer visitor in our church. My loo, for the time being was despised and rejected
of men b\- a triumjihant majority •liiJband has this small chinch, and he d'-'es
«nd
Lincoln and his minority went down to
defeat. But though the majority was ag:ainst
lim, truth still remained unchanged, for the
real question was not of men's majorities,
but of principle. And to Lincoln in his naine.rity,
as to many a man in the loneliness of
isolated dissent, came that needed assurance
that, 'in such a controversy the majority
])rinciple has no legitimate place. When the
weapon is reason and not force, there is no
magic in a multitude of suffrages. Opinions
are to be weighed, not numbered, and if they
will not bear the test of reason, it is morally
impossible that they stand as law.' So
too, in the election of i860. Lincoln, while
elected, represented but a mere minority.
The combined votes of Douglass and Breckinridge,
all of whom were against him, constituted
a great majority of the nation. In
the election of 1864, Lincoln was again the
representative of a minority, for the principles
he stood for would not then have commanded
a support of a majority North and
.South, had all his countrymen voted. But
who will say that Lincoln and his minority
were wrong, and that Judge Douglass and
his majority were right? The Athenians had
among their mariy statues one dedicated to
'time which vindicates,' and of one of his
noblest characters John Bunyan had only to
say, 'But Patience was wilHng to wait.'
Truly time and patience, and not recklessness
of majorities, are the guardians of minorities,
protests and dissents."
THE DEATH OF REV. DR. LOUIS
The
MEYER.
death of Rev. Dr. ^Nfeyer is a loss
to the cause of Education and of Missions. Mr.
Meyer had received thorough early training
in the Gymnasium in Germany, and had had
that business experience in foreign service that
made him careful and accurate in his records
and references.
Converted to Christ
in Cincinnati by the missionary zeal of
Rev. J. Calvin Smith, pastor of the Covenanter
church, he gave himself to the minisitry
of the Gospel, and became
congregation at Hopkinton, Iowa.
pastor of the
He had
long been a contributor to the lezvish Era
of Chicago, and has been an assistant in the
editorship of the Missionary Review of the
IVorld.
At many conventions at home and
abroad, he had read papers of great interest
bearing on Israel, his own people, beloved
for the Fathers sake.
His work of
later years, in editing the Fundamentals, is
not among the least of his labors. He has
left behind a series of pamphlets that have
had a large circulation, in the interests of
Evangelical religion, the expense being provided
for by the Christian liberality of two
devoted laymen.
i\Ir. Meyer's chief labors were outside ot
the Covenanter Church, and hence some wer»
not whollv familiar with them. Therefore