are wise
enough and strong enough to do all this if they will address themselves to
the situation and take it seriously.

(3) _Better Support_

In a large part of Ohio the farmers are able and ready to multiply the
amount of money they now contribute for the support of the churches. When
it is made clear to them that better pay will bring a better minister,
increased support will cheerfully be given. But the farmers will not give
more money either for the support of an inferior minister, or to carry out
the old program. They will demand their money's worth, and this the
present methods do not, in general, supply. The increased prosperity and
consequent ability of the farmers to support the church more liberally is
indicated by the fact that the total value of farm property in Ohio
increased nearly 60 per cent during the ten-year period from 1900 to 1910.

But it must be remembered that increased support will not be given by the
farmers unless the need for it, and what it will bring, is brought
forcefully to their attention. This the individual minister cannot do, for
to attempt it lays him open to the charge of feathering his own nest. It
should be done by a State Federation of Churches or by such organizations
as The Ohio Rural Life Association, acting through its own institutes and
the farmers' institutes, through the circulation of its literature, and
through the formation of organizations for this purpose in the churches of
the different counties. No matter how good work a minister may do,
ordinarily he will not be adequately supported unless some special agency
does this work.

(4) _Better Acquaintance_

The present system of circuits entails upon the country minister an
enormous waste of time. If a man tries to do the pastoral work which is
strictly necessary, he must spend a very large proportion of his working
hours in driving to the widely separated points of his various parishes,
crossing and recrossing as he goes the lines of travel of other ministers
engaged in the same territory upon the same work. That the country
minister should be called upon to waste so large a part of his life in
this way is shameful because it is bad and inefficient organization, and
carries with it an utterly needless loss.

To understand the significance of pastoral calling in a rural community it
must be remembered that isolation is as characteristic of the country as
congestion is of the cities. A large proportion of ru