try was the simplest of all and
that any one could be a rural minister. It would be amusing if it were
not so tragic to accept the testimony of some of those who have not
yet seen that the rural ministry is a type demanding such a
cosmopolitan understanding of human nature and of conditions of human
existence that it demands the best intellects and the highest type of
missionary spirit to carry on successfully. We have heard of college
presidents recommending young men for important rural positions
because the young man was "not ambitious for any important work in the
church." It has been known that officials in the church would bid for
theological seminary graduates with the assurance that while they
would have to accept an "undesirable" rural charge for a year or so,
they would soon be "promoted." The writer knows of at least one young
Negro minister, a holder of a Master's degree from a large educational
institution, whose major work for his higher degree was in the dead
languages. The attitude of our educational institutions, and the
attitude in public thought has been that progress for the individual
has been in the direction of getting away from the country instead of
remaining with rural folk and giving one's life to the advancement of
the group as a whole; and the courses of study have had primarily in
mind the personal appeal rather than that of dealing with man in his
particular environment.

It is now recognized that modern life demands a specialized ministry.
The one who can handle successfully a rural industrial or a downtown
urban situation may not be at all fitted to deal with the problems of
the village or the open country. On the other hand, the one who can
serve farmers successfully might not be at all fitted to fill a
metropolitan pulpit. Beginnings only have been made in attempting to
adjust educational work to meet this modern demand. In the meantime
the problem remains of the ministers trained under former conditions,
if trained at all. Many of them have not yet caught the vision of the
larger program of the church; and of those who have caught this vision
the handling of the tools of the new program is such a delicate task
that many failures are sure to be recorded. It will take years to
bring the church to the place where it can meet successfully the
modern demands upon it.

The second great problem is that of maladjustment in thought.
Protestantism is still suffering from the effects of extrem