ng the believer to
his social environment in such a way as to emphasize social function, as
much as personal inward obligations formerly were emphasized by
theology.

We need, therefore, for the best interests of the country that the
native sense of personal importance characteristic of rural thinking
should be brought into contact with social need, so that it may function
socially. Out of this movement will issue most happily a great social
optimism in the country and individualism will lose nothing by being
adjusted to modern social needs. The chief agencies that socialize
rural thinking are the church, the school, the press, secret societies
and clubs, and the industry of farming itself.

The effective rural church as a socializing agency has a commanding
position. Even the inefficient church has more social influence than
appears on the surface. In a considerable part of the area of social
inspiration the Church has an absolute monopoly. The rural church,
however, has been until recently too well content with an individual
ethics that modern life has made obsolete. In our day healthy-minded
religion is forcing men and women to see their duties in social forms.
It is becoming clear that one cannot save his own soul in full degree if
attention is concentrated upon personal salvation. The country ministry
is beginning to feel the changing order of things and there is an
increasing attempt to build up a socializing institution in the Church.
Such a radical readjustment is not easily made, nor can we expect it to
be a complete success. Ministers are puzzled how to work out the new
program; they even at times become discouraged as a result of
disappointments. Impatience may be made the cause of defeat in such a
reform. It is much to ask of our generation that it turn about face
morally. Yet the dangerous thing is sure to happen when no effort is
made to influence the Church to assume a moral social function in the
country. We think as a people in social terms and the church that
remains backward in assuming social duties is bound to be repudiated by
the program of vital Christianity. The church that is struggling to
maintain the old-time individualism is driven first to isolation and
later to social hostility and moral stagnation. The rural church will
move on more smoothly if it can obtain better-trained leadership. The
minister is not yet given an adequate social view in some of our
theological seminaries, great as ha