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