the soil and the flock and
the field. Its richest images are from the plain face of nature and the
homely life of humble cottages." Country Sunday schools need a lesson
literature which can interpret to them the wonderful messages of the Book
of books in terms of rural life; but meanwhile they are doing their best
to discover these messages of life themselves.

_The Rural Young Men's Christian Association_

A most valuable ally of the country church, in many parts of the country,
is the Rural Young Men's Christian Association, or the County Work, as it
is usually called, because it is organized on the county basis. It is
serving the interests of the young men and boys of the village and open
country in a most effective way. It is successfully supplementing the work
of the country churches where they are making their worst failures, and it
is often uniting rival churches in a common cause, to save the boys; which
results in a new sympathy and an ultimately united religious community.

It is developing young manhood in body, mind and spirit, furnishing
wholesome social activities and recreation, conducting clean athletics,
encouraging clean sport and pure fun, stimulating true ambition and
intelligent, constructive life plans for the discontented farm boy,
cleaning him up morally and opening his eyes to see new religious ideals.

Through well-directed groups for Bible study and through quiet personal
work, the country boys are led to the discovery that religion is "a man's
job" and that it is essential to a well-rounded life; and they come to a
frank and normal religious experience which profoundly changes their
outlook on life and gives them a new life efficiency.

This Association work is no experiment. For years it has been widely
successful in many states and is promoted by the State and International
Committees on scientifically sound principles, based on a close study of
rural sociology and tried out by years of patient endeavor by well-trained
men who are specialists in their field. It is one of the most promising
just now of all the various lines of Young Men's Christian Association
work; and it is certainly as much needed as any branch of their work in
the cities.

_Working Principles_

The County Work aims to save the country boy and develop him for Christian
citizenship, not by the use of costly equipment, but by personality,
trained, consecrated leadership; not by institutions but by friendship;
not