the decadence of the rural church than any one factor. Small
congregations are unable to support a full time pastor, and where
several of them are competing in a small community, it is deprived of
the services of a resident minister. Preaching once in two weeks and
practically no pastoral visitation are not conducive to the life of a
church. The small church maintains its Sunday school with difficulty for
there are too few of any one age for a satisfactory division of classes.
Equally serious is the fact that the ablest men will not enter the
ministry to devote themselves to what they regard as an unnecessary and
unchristian competition.

Tompkins County, where I live, is a fair average of rural New York. A
recent survey shows that but eight of its twenty-eight rural communities
have full time resident pastors, though there are ministers residing in
twenty-five parishes who also serve other parishes nearby. Throughout
the county there was one church for every 332 people, but the average
village church had but 92 active members, and the average country
church had but 32. The church membership has remained practically
stationary for thirty years, while the attendance has decreased from 21
percent of the rural population in 1890 to 14 percent in 1920. One
community of 900 population had five churches, no one of which had a
resident pastor or over 45 members, while two of them had but 11 members
each and were closed. Six strictly rural communities in the southern
part of the county have 16 churches, though none of these places can
properly support more than one church with a resident pastor. After a
careful study of the whole county, I am of the opinion that if at least
one-third of the rural churches were abandoned or combined, the work of
the church would be greatly strengthened. This county is cited because
it is fairly typical; many worse have been reported in other surveys.

Another handicap of the rural church is the frequent shift of ministers.
In Tompkins County only 4 of the 57 churches have had the same pastor
for ten years, 17 changed pastors three times in ten years and 17 of the
pastors had been in their parishes one year or less. When a minister
stays but a year or two, his parishioners tend to be only acquaintances
and rarely does he really know them. A minister cannot become well
enough acquainted with a new parish to do effective pastoral work in
less than a year, and many ministers who have seemingly goo