and none of the country churches has a pastor. Thus the value
of the family life of the preacher is cancelled. After all this
organization and division of the men into small fractions among the
churches, there are sixteen of these churches which have neither pastor
nor preacher.

This "Group System" can be improved, as is done in Tennessee, by the
shortening of the journeys which must be made by the minister from his
home to his preaching point. Nevertheless, it gives to the country
community only a fraction of a man's time. He can interpret religion in
only three ways; in the sermon, the funeral service and the wedding.
Unfortunately mankind has to do many other things besides getting
married, buried or preached at.

The country community needs a pastor. It is better for the minister who
preaches to the country to live in the country. There are some parts
which cannot support a pastor, but the minister to country churches
should know the daily round of country life. Religion can never be
embodied in a sermon; and when religion comes to be limited to a formal
act it is tinged with suspicion in the eyes of most men. Sermons and
funerals and weddings become to country people the windows by which
religion flies out of the community. Especially among farmers, religion
is a matter of every-day life. What religion the farmer has grows out of
his yearly struggle with the soil and with the elements. His belief in
God is a belief in Providence. His God is the creator of the sun and the
seasons, the wind and the rain. The man who does not with him share
these experiences cannot long interpret them for him in terms of
scripture or of church.

The policy of the newer territories of the church must be to translate
the "Group System" into pastorates. The long range group service should
be transformed into short and compact group ministry; the pastor should
live in the country community and the length of his journey should never
be longer than his horse can drive. A group of churches which are not
more than ten miles apart constitute a country parish. Some few active
ministers are able to make thirty to forty miles on horseback on a
Sunday, among a scattered people. This is well, but as soon as the
railroad becomes an essential factor in the monthly visit of ministers
to the country, religion passes out of that community.

The service of the country preacher, in other words, is essentially
confined to the country community, and t