The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Making of a Country Parish, by Harlow S. (Harlow Spencer) Mills This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Making of a Country Parish Author: Harlow S. (Harlow Spencer) Mills Release Date: June 5, 2010 [eBook #32703] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAKING OF A COUNTRY PARISH*** E-text prepared by Tom Roch and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA), Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University (http://chla.library.cornell.edu/) and Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/makingofcountryp00mill or Core Historical Literature of Agriculture (CHLA), Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=chla;idno=2750849 LIBRARY OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS Volumes Issued The Church a Community Force. By Worth M. Tippy The Church at the Center. By Warren H. Wilson The Making of a Country Parish. By Harlow S. Mills Cloth, 50 Cents, Prepaid additional volumes to be issued from beulah to benzonia THE MAKING OF A COUNTRY PARISH A STORY BY HARLOW S. MILLS new york Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada 1914 Copyright, 1914, by missionary education movement of the united states and canada to the rev. and mrs. f. a. noble, d.d., who made the summer of nineteen hundred and thirteen memorable in the larger benzonia parish by their presence, and by their kindly and helpful interest in its work, and to whom this story owes its suggestion and inspiration, it is most gratefully inscribed. [Pg vii] F CONTENTS chapter page Foreword by Newell Dwight Hillis ix Introduction xiii Key to Map xvii Description of the Map xviii I The Historical Setting of the Story 1 II Some Convictions Out of Which the Vision Came 12 III How the Vision Came 25 IV How the Vision Became a Reality 36 V The Methods of the Larger Parish 59 VI Things Yet to be Done 97 VII Some Resultant Conclusions 113 ILLUSTRATIONS page From Beulah to Benzonia Frontispiece Map Showing the Larger Parish xvi Crystal Lake and Beulah from Benzonia 10 The Platt Lake Chapel 72 The Benzonia Church 104 FOREWORD OR many years lovers of the republic have been warning our people as to the perils of modern city life. In 1800 one person out of thirteen lived in the city; to-day nearly every other citizen lives in a large town, or a great city. The city is the home of wealth, commerce, and finance; the home of music, art, and eloquence. Once each year all the great leaders come for a stay, long or short, to the metropolis. The birds leave the desert to seek the oasis, with its palm trees and springs of water. Young men, for two generations, have been deserting the farm and the village, to make their home in the great city. Many unexpected perils have sprung up from this massing of population. Among these dangers are the tenements, saloon, gambling houses, dens of vice, the tendency to anarchy, incident to the contrast between the palaces on the avenues and the rookeries on the Bowery. Insane people, defective children, men and women wrecked through drink and drugs, are some of the incidental results of congested populations. Innumerable addresses have been given upon the perils of the city life, and innumerable pamphlets and books have been published filled with warnings and black with alarm. The inevitable result is that the attention of the people has been focalized upon the manufacturing towns and the large cities. Now comes the Rev. Harlow S. Mills, with his study of the rural population. With the wisdom made possible by twenty years of first-hand knowledge he sets forth the influence of the country upon the large town and city. He tells us that the country has furnished the leaders for the people. It is in the country that the boy has his opportunity of brooding and reading and reflecting, while in solitude he develops his own gift and grows great. The Church has learned to depend upon the country for its theological students, as well as for its best students of law and medicine. But of late the country church has suffered grievously through the pull of the city upon its best young men and women. The inevitable result has been that as the city church has waxed the country church has waned in wealth, numbers, and influence. Many things have occurred during the past twenty years that are calculated to stir the note of fear, lest the life and institutions of the republic, rooted in the country, should slowly [Pg viii] [Pg ix] [Pg x] [Pg xi] T starve. One of the problems of the hour has been the rejuvenation of the country Sunday-school and the country church. Leaders of the past generation have struggled often in vain with this problem. Twenty years ago, the Rev. Harlow S. Mills, a friend of my boyhood, took a country church in northwestern Michigan, and started in to develop the same community spirit among the people who lived in widely separated school districts that the student finds developed in the wards of a great city. The story of these twenty years is full of fascination to all lovers of their fellow men and of the Christian Church. Mr. Mills has made some important discoveries and established certain mother principles that should be of invaluable service to the one half of our people living in small towns and rural districts. I believe this author and lover of his fellows has grown the good seed that ultimately will sow the continent with bread. Newell Dwight Hillis. INTRODUCTION HE rapid growth of our cities and towns during the last quarter of a century has brought us face to face with a serious problem. The religious and social conditions that have arisen give occasion for grave apprehensions, and have been subjects of careful thought. The City Problem has been widely discussed. Much thought and effort have been expended in its solution, and, while progress has been made and the outlook is hopeful, the end is not yet. Within recent years another problem has arisen which is scarcely less serious than that which the city presents, and that is the Country Problem. There are two reasons why this has not attracted special attention until quite lately. First, the city problem has been so serious and so acute that it has occupied the public mind to the exclusion of conditions in the country. And, in the second place, those conditions have increased in seriousness so rapidly in recent years and their demand for attention and careful consideration has become so insistent and imperious that it can no longer be disregarded. No thoughtful person can now blink the fact that there is a country problem, that it is equal in seriousness to the city problem, and that the two are so intimately related that neither of them can be solved by itself alone. They stand or fall together. I have no theory to present, nor any philosophy to exploit. I have no patent way of solving either the city or the country problem. I have only a story to tell of some things that have been done that may point the way toward a solution of the country problem. It is the simple account of an experiment in the work of religious and social welfare that promises to be successful. The parish that is spoken of may be regarded as an experiment station, and this story is only the account of the working out of certain methods. It will be enough if the story shall prove to be some small contribution to the solution of the important and difficult country problem. One of the greatest difficulties I had in writing this story was with myself. Some of the experiences were so purely personal that I hesitated to speak of them and I shrank from the so frequent use of the personal pronouns. In the first draft of the story I resorted to all manner of circumlocution to avoid their use, but I found it difficult to adopt any consistent form and the result was to weaken the impression. So, acting on the advice of able and judicious critics, I concluded to tell the story in the simplest and most direct way. H. S. Mills. BENZONIA, MICHIGAN, August 15, 1914. Larger Image [Pg xii] [Pg xiii] [Pg xiv] [Pg xv] [Pg xvi] [Pg xvii] T KEY TO MAP 1. Benzonia Village, Benzonia Township. Church Organization, Church Building. Morning Service every Sunday. Sunday School, Christian Endeavor Society, Woman’s Missionary Society, Weekly Prayer Meeting, Ladies’ Aid Society. 2. Beulah Village, Benzonia Township. Chapel. Evening Service every Sunday, Sunday School, Ladies’ Aid Society. 3. Eden, Benzonia Township. Church Organization, Schoolhouse (Chapel, 1914). Evening Service every Sunday, Sunday School, Christian Endeavor Society, Weekly Prayer Meeting, Neighborhood Club, Ladies’ Social Circle. 4. Champion Hill, Homestead Township. Church Organization, Chapel. Morning Service every Sunday, Christian Endeavor Society. 5. Platt Lake, Benzonia Township. Chapel. Afternoon Service on alternate Sundays. Ladies’ Aid Society. 6. North Crystal, Benzonia Township. Private Home (Chapel, 1914). Afternoon Service on alternate Sundays, Sunday School, Ladies’ Aid Society. 7. Grace, Gilmore Township. Church Organization, Chapel. Morning Service every Sunday, Sunday School, Neighborhood Club, Ladies’ Aid Society. 8. Demerley, Joyfield Township. Schoolhouse. Afternoon Service on alternate Sundays, Sunday School. 9. South Chapel, Benzonia Township. Chapel. Evening Service on alternate Sundays, Sunday School. 10. East Joyfield, Joyfield Township. Chapel. Evening Service on alternate Sundays, Sunday School. 11. Liberty Union, Benzonia Township. Schoolhouse. Afternoon Service on alternate Sundays, Neighborhood Club. 12. South Elberta, Gilmore Township. Schoolhouse. Sunday School. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAP In order that the term, “The Larger Parish,” the name by which the work of this story has come to be familiarly known, may be understood, some description of its geography and topography as represented on the accompanying map, may be necessary. The Larger Benzonia Parish is situated in Benzie County, Michigan, eight miles from Lake Michigan and at the east end of Crystal Lake, one of the most beautiful small lakes in the state. Benzonia-Beulah, the twin villages which are at the center of the Larger Parish, are on the Ann Arbor Railroad, which extends diagonally through the state from Toledo, Ohio, to Frankfort on Lake Michigan. The Larger Parish includes Benzonia Township and portions of Lake, Homestead, Joyfield, Gilmore, and Crystal Lake Townships. It divides itself into three sub- parishes: the North Parish, with two churches, Champion Hill and Eden, and two out-stations, North Crystal and Platt Lake; the South Parish, with one church, Grace, and five out-stations, South Chapel, Demerley, East Joyfield, Liberty Union, and South Elberta; while between these is the Central Parish, with Benzonia on the hilltop and Beulah in the valley, half a mile distant. The map represents the western half of Benzie County, and the various churches, chapels, and other out-stations are designated. I THE HISTORICAL SETTING OF THE STORY HE story of New England with the Pilgrims left out could be neither understood nor appreciated. We must know something about those sturdy, conscientious men and women who became exiles and crossed the stormy Atlantic that they might have “freedom to worship God.” We must understand something about the barren and the wintry coast that received them, something of their struggles and sufferings, their aims and aspirations, if we would know the history of that civilization that they founded, or get a true conception of the experiment in [Pg xvii] [Pg xviii] [Pg 1] democracy that they so successfully wrought out. The story that is about to be told had its Pilgrims. To leave them out would be to spoil the story. It cannot be understood without knowing something of their heroic spirit, their sincere devotion, and the manner in which they permanently impressed their ideas and their personality upon the community which they founded and the institutions which they planted. Some account of its historical setting will be necessary in order to make this story of country evangelization complete. The half century between 1825 and 1875 witnessed the most remarkable educational movement that our country has ever seen. It was the era of college planting. During that period a line of Christian colleges was projected from New York to California, many of which have been developed and stand to-day as monuments to the zeal and foresight of that remarkable generation of nation builders. The value of their work, and its influence for good upon the people and the institutions of the most populous, the wealthiest, and the most influential section of our country cannot be estimated. In 1858 a company of people from northern Ohio, who had lighted their torch of religious and educational enthusiasm at the flame of Oberlin, came into the vast wilderness of northern Michigan with the purpose of planting there Christian institutions. They were high-minded, sturdy people, with strong religious convictions. The Pilgrims did not bring to the New England coast a truer motive or a purer purpose. They were willing to put into the enterprise their lives and their fortunes. They stamped the new community that they founded with the impress of their ideals, and that stamp has persisted. These modern Pilgrims repeated with some modification the experiences of their New England prototypes. After a long and stormy voyage on the Great Lakes they landed in the late autumn on an inhospitable coast, built them some rough shanties that their descendants would not consider worthy to shelter their cattle, and there they passed a severe winter. They explored the northwestern Michigan woods, and finally, with a strange indifference to the importance of a railway to the development of a town, they lighted upon a level plateau on the top of a high hill, two hundred feet above the placid waters of beautiful Lake Crystal, and eight miles from Lake Michigan, and there they pitched their tents. Like Abraham, their first work after entering the Promised Land was to build an altar to Jehovah, and like him and their New England ancestors, they built it on the highest elevation that they could find. One of the first things they did was to select a site for a church and for a school, and, standing under the tall maples and beeches, with hymn and prayer, to dedicate that high hilltop to the cause of Christian education. The church that they planted, the first in all the Grand Traverse region, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its organization in 1910. It has now a membership of about three hundred, and is the center of the religious and social life, not only of the immediate community but also of the territory known as “The Larger Parish,” twelve miles long and ten miles wide. It has been the mother of churches, and now stands encircled by a number of younger organizations that are growing strong and sturdy under its cherishing influence. Benzonia, the village that they founded, never became the populous center that they hoped it would be. There are now but about four hundred people living on the hilltop, and nearly as many more in the village of Beulah, which, at the bottom of the hill nestles around the head of the Lake, half a mile away. The two villages of Benzonia and Beulah form one corporation, and contain together about seven hundred inhabitants. The school which they established is still doing business, though not exactly in the way that they anticipated. They thought to repeat the history of Oberlin by planting in the woods of northern Michigan an institution of learning such as the fathers planted in northern Ohio. But the conditions were very dissimilar. Oberlin was in the zone of quick settlement. Cities and towns soon sprang up all about it, and it became in a few years the center of a large population. But the northern Michigan region developed very slowly and it was a long time before there were enough people to maintain a college or to justify its presence. But from the first there was in operation a school of high order, and it performed a splendid service in those early years, doing the educational work for all that region, and supplying teachers for the public schools throughout a wide territory. It is now conducted as an Academy and is doing an excellent work, sending forth each year large classes of young people well prepared to enter any college or university in the country. The Academy has been maintained very largely by the gifts and sacrifices of the people of the community, and is an important factor of the work that is being wrought out in “The Larger Parish.” The people of this community are unusually homogeneous. There are no Roman Catholics, few foreigners, and no colored people. They are hardworking and industrious, none of them possessing large wealth, and none of them being very poor. All are compelled to toil for their daily bread. There, if anywhere, it is possible to live “the simple life,” and in such healthful conditions the community life has developed. Though the presence of the Academy has been a means of culture and the center and inspirations of literary life, it is by no means true that all the people in the wide parish are well educated. A few miles from the village primitive and pioneer conditions are found, and there is no lack of genuine missionary ground. The social life of this community is very satisfactory. There are no classes or cliques. The people mingle together freely on a common basis, and exemplify to an unusual degree the principle of brotherhood. There has never been a saloon in the community, and the people are for the most part steady-going and law-abiding. They are loyal to their home institutions, crowding the church on Sunday and taking a lively interest in all things that pertain to the [Pg 2] [Pg 3] [Pg 4] [Pg 5] [Pg 6] [Pg 7] [Pg 8] A welfare of the village and the surrounding country. They are dependent upon themselves for literary and musical entertainments—no shows or moving picture combinations ever come that way. But a good lecture course is maintained, and there are frequent musical and literary entertainments by the Academy and high school and by the people of the town; so there is no lack of the means of recreation, and that of a high order and of a helpful character. At the west end of Crystal Lake, eight miles distant, on a beautiful tract of land with frontage on Lake Michigan, as well as on Crystal Lake, are the grounds of the Frankfort Congregational Summer Assembly. The location is superb, and it is rapidly becoming a favorite summer resort, attracting people even from New England and from the Pacific coast. The relation between Benzonia and the summer assembly is very close. It is easily accessible by frequent boats. Every year they have “Benzonia Day,” when the Assembly adjourns to the beautiful campus on the hilltop, enjoying a dinner together under the trees and a well-arranged program of speeches and music. The residents of the surrounding country come in crowds to these outdoor festivals and they are eagerly anticipated by all. They afford a fine opportunity for the people of the vicinage to meet in friendly intercourse those who come from distant parts of the country to enjoy the cool breezes and the woods and lakes of the northern Michigan regions, and they are appreciated by all. Sometimes the Assembly is the host, and the people of Benzonia are the guests. During the summer the leading ministers of the country are frequently in the Benzonia pulpit, and so the people, though living quite remote from the great centers, and not given to much travel, have the privilege of hearing the most noted speakers, and thus come in touch with the good things that are being said and done in the wider world. The Academy and summer Assembly are closely related to the work of the Larger Benzonia Parish. While this work has not been dependent upon them, their presence and influence have been a great stimulus and encouragement, and they have added strength and stability to the movement. Thus briefly is sketched the setting of the story that will be told in the succeeding chapters. Larger Image crystal lake and beulah from benzonia II SOME CONVICTIONS OUT OF WHICH THE VISION CAME CONVICTION is a great thing. It is the egg out of which all great enterprises are hatched. Almost everything that is worth while was once wrapped up in a conviction. Abraham had a conviction that he ought to obey God’s leading. He took his journey to the “land that he knew not of,” and we have as the result the Hebrew race, and all that has come out of it for the world. The vision of which I am telling the story was at first only a conviction. There were a few things of which I had become certain. Just how the conviction seized me I hardly know, but I like to think that it came from the same source from which Abraham’s conviction came, and that thought has made me confident in following this guiding gleam. 1. I became convinced that the real object of the Church is to serve the people, and that its claim for support should rest upon the same ground upon which every other institution bases its claim for support—that it gives value received. That has not always been the idea of church people. They have considered the Church as a divine institution, and that because of its divine origin and sacred character it can properly demand respect and support. There was a time in the not very distant past when the ministers of the Church, as its representatives, might demand reverence and respect because of the position they occupied. There was much of reverence and regard for “the cloth.” But those days are past. Now the Church is valued only for what it does. If it does nothing, it need no longer look for respectful recognition. If it makes no contribution to the community whose value can be seen and appreciated, it cannot expect support or favorable regard. People do not care very much for clerical dignity in these days. They are not asking what place a man occupies, or what kind of clothes he wears, but what he does for the community. Is he rendering valuable service? They are quite ready to pay for service that is of real worth, but for dignity and traditionary sanctity they have slight regard. There are some who seem to think that the Church makes good by building itself up—that if it becomes strong as an institution, if it flourishes in its outward aspects, it justifies its existence. They are well satisfied if it increases in [Pg 9] [Pg 10] [Pg 11] [Pg 12] [Pg 13] [Pg 14] numbers, if it erects splendid and beautiful buildings, if it contributes substantially to the glory of the denomination to which it belongs, whether it really serves the people or not. But it can never answer the ends of its existence by simply building itself up as an institution. There have been periods in the history of the Church when it was very strong as an organization, but very weak as an element of helpfulness in the lives of the people. Fine buildings and stately ritual and high social standing can never satisfy the great Founder of the Church. Jesus said, “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” He sent his Church on the same errand. Unless it is doing the thing for which it was sent it has no justification for its existence. It is here to serve, to help the people. In-so-far as it actually does serve it may claim and expect love, recognition, and support—but no further. This became one of my strong convictions. 2. I also became convinced that the Church, if it makes good must serve all the people. The impression has sometimes prevailed that the Church is for good people, for those who are respectable. It has been thought of, and sometimes it has thought of itself, as under obligations to minister to the religious people of the community, or to those who can be induced to become religious. There is a large class of people who are not religiously inclined and who have no affiliation with the Church, and who, perhaps, are not likely to have, for whom it has not been thought to be responsible. In almost every parish, or within reach of it, there are numbers of people who are not touched by the Church, and who are not considered to be material for the Church to work upon. Some are outside of its influence because they live so far away that they cannot easily be reached. Some because of their character and standing in society are considered beyond its pale. What would be the effect if a company of women from the street should come into one of our beautiful and respectable churches for a few Sunday mornings? How would they be received? Would the ushers show them comfortable seats? Would they be welcome in the pews of the good people who have come together to worship God? And yet, the great Head of the Church came “to seek and to save that which was lost.” He did not shun such people or banish them from his presence. He was “a friend of publicans and sinners,” and brought down upon himself serious criticism because he did not discriminate more carefully in the matter of his associates. The Church should have the spirit of the Master, and, wherever there is a man, woman, or child, there is one in whom the Church should be interested, and whom it should seek to serve, whatever may be his character, his condition, or his standing socially. It became one of my strong convictions that the Church has a definite mission to every person within the possible range of its influence, and out of that conviction came the vision. 3. It also became plain that if the Church would fulfil its mission it must serve all the interests of the people. I was brought up with the idea that its mission was largely, if not exclusively, spiritual. Its chief and almost only concern was the soul of the individual man. It was thought that a man has a soul, and that that soul was in peril. His soul must be saved—that was the important thing. It was of small consequence that the man himself went to the dogs, if only his soul was saved. The man was forgotten in anxiety for his soul. We were the victims of a false psychology; as if a man and his soul could be separated—as if there could be any such thing as simply saving the soul of a man! We have come to see that a man, though composed of many parts, is a unit. He is not put together mechanically, so that one part may be taken and treated and the other parts ignored. He is not built in separate compartments, his soul in one, and his body in another. Christianity is not dealing with souls alone. It is dealing with men, and we are becoming interested in all that makes a man a man. The conviction became strong that the Church should have something to say and something to do with everything that goes to make up the life of the man; that it should make itself felt as an influence in his business, his education, his recreation, his home life, as well as in his so-called religious exercises; that it should be a force with him on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday as well as on Sunday. In other words, the line that has been supposed to separate the sacred from the secular must be obliterated, and every common thing must become sacred. It was seen that everything that has a rightful place in the life of a man should be the concern of the Church, and that whatever cannot be brought into harmony with the Church and its principles has no proper place in the real life of a man. 4. The conviction became strong that the village church, if it would fulfil its mission, must be responsible for country evangelization. It must reach out into all the surrounding neighborhoods, and touch the people in a vital way for many miles around. In the popular conception the influence of the church has been contracted and narrowed till it does not include half the territory nor half the people embraced in its responsibility. Many ministers are content to tramp around in the narrow confines of their own village, with an occasional excursion into the country, while there are scores of families living a little more remote for whom they are attempting nothing. Some ministers look upon their churches as their field rather than their force—a field to be cultivated rather than a force of workers to be led out into the widestretching fields that lie beyond. This is a serious mistake. Such a limited conception of the extent of its work and such an inadequate idea of its real responsibility and of its best opportunity will certainly condemn a church to comparative uselessness, and in the end to failure. When all the village churches get the vision and see their work in its fulness, the country problem will be solved. Country evangelization belongs primarily and practically to the village church. The village church is the only one that can really take it up and deal with it in a successful way. It is in the power of the churches in the villages and small towns to change the whole aspect of things in the country, religiously, morally, and socially. For some years the pastor and church of this story had been trying to do something for the outlying regions, but they had not grasped the idea that all the people for many miles around who were not cared for by some other church were in their parish—that for them they were responsible and to them they had a mission. They began to [Pg 15] [Pg 16] [Pg 17] [Pg 18] [Pg 19] [Pg 20] [Pg 21] [Pg 22] T see that they were not doing half the work they might do and ought to do; that there were scores of families, and hundreds of people, to whom the church was nothing, who should be made to feel its force in a stimulating and uplifting way. They began to feel the pressure of that obligation that had rested on them all along, and of which they had been unconscious or unheedful. The voice of God began to sound plainly in their ears, “Go ye forth into these ripe harvest-fields, and gather sheaves for the Master.” The conviction became so strong that they ought to take up the wider work, and the duty grew to be so plain that they wondered that they had not seen it long before. 5. The conviction became strong that, if the village church would fulfil its mission, it must be a community church. I used to think that the church had simply to do with individuals; that its work was to reach out here and there, to get hold of this one and that one, and that there its work terminated. Society was thought of as a heap of sand, and not as an organism. Man was considered in himself alone, and not in his relations, and so he was misunderstood, for nothing can be truly and fully known except in its relations. But it has become plain that this exclusively individualistic conception was a mistake; that there is such a thing as community life, the life that all the people have in common; that men are bound up together by common interests; that they are members one of another; that “none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself.” The conviction became strong that the church should take account of this community life of which the individual is a part; that it should concern itself not only for men, but for man; that it should serve the whole community, and that nothing should be foreign to the church or ignored by it that in any way concerns the common life of the people. This conviction did not detract from my estimate of the importance of the spiritual, or of the individual. I still regarded the spiritual part of a man as his most essential part. It was still plain that we have to deal with men as individuals, but I recognized them also in their organic relation to the whole life of the community. Not only were the men’s souls to be saved, but the men themselves were to be saved. Not only were the men to be saved and lifted up to a better life, but the whole community was to be saved, and the community life was to be uplifted and placed on a higher plane. Out of these convictions, which grew more and more positive, came the vision whose fulfilment is the subject of this story. III HOW THE VISION CAME HE genesis of a vision is always interesting, though often obscure. On one day a certain side of life is a blank. There is no outlook, no hint of the coming brightness. On another day that side of life is made all radiant and glorious by a vision, clear and definite, that beckons on to future achievement. Sometimes it comes suddenly, like Peter’s vision when he was upon the housetop in Joppa; and sometimes it dawns gradually, and little by little paints itself in beautiful colors upon the sky of one’s inner consciousness. As remarked in a previous chapter, a conviction is the egg from which the vision comes; but the egg is only dead and formless matter until it is brooded over and warmed into life. So a conviction may be strong and positive, but it may exist for a long time, formless, lifeless, and useless, until it is quickened into vitality by the brooding spirit of a man, and thus becomes an active and inspiring force. So it may be profitable and necessary to the proper understanding of this story to tell how the vision came. For fifteen years I had been working away in my country parish. They had been happy years of glad, harmonious work. I was satisfied with my job. Though remote from the great centers of population, in a small village, and with people of very modest means, that restless feeling that spoils the peace and mars the work of so many ministers had been absent. My people were of the strong and sturdy sort, faithful and appreciative beyond many, ready to coöperate in carrying out any plans of work that the pastor might propose. They were splendid followers, responding quickly to all my suggestions. There was a good understanding between myself and the people. I was called to pass through deep affliction. My home was broken up by a sudden stroke and I was left alone. Into the dark valley of sorrow my people accompanied me as far as they were able to go, and the effect seemed to be to unite us with bonds that were very strong and tender. Every home in all the parish was mine. All the children belonged to me. There was a chair for me at every fireside and a plate at every table. But as the years went by there came some tempting opportunities to engage in work elsewhere. I was not without my ambitions and aspirations. I wanted to fill out the full measure of my ability and do my best work. And when some opportunities came that made the little country parish seem by comparison rather small and meager, I was not altogether proof against them. To become assistant pastor in a famous church in a large city—to take up the work of general missionary for a whole state seemed to promise fields of usefulness so rich and large that they [Pg 23] [Pg 24] [Pg 25] [Pg 26] [Pg 27] [Pg 28] made a strong appeal to the best there was in me, and perhaps also to the worst. I spent some weeks and months in considering these propositions and finally turned them down. I could not bring myself to sever my connection with those to whom I had been so long and so closely related. The personal tie was too strong and I decided to remain with my people. With the decision came a thorough heart-searching. It marked a turning-point in my spiritual history. I was impressed with the thought that if it was God’s will that I should remain in my present work, it must be for a special purpose. Things could not be in the future as they had been in the past. It would be criminal to turn down a larger work for one that was small unless there were good and sufficient reasons for doing so. If it was the Lord’s will that I should remain in that country parish, there must be some work there that it was worth while for me to do, some work that in a proper degree, at least, would approach in importance the large proposition made by the city and the state. What was the work? Was there anything to be done among those hills and in those rapidly disappearing forests that could fire a man’s ambitions and satisfy his high aspirations? Just here the vision came. At first a whole township was revealed as a possible parish, with every family tributary to the church, and the church performing a valuable ministry for them all. The vision expanded until it took in another township, and parts of three or four more. It became plain that almost half a county was tributary to the church, that five hundred families and twenty-five hundred people were waiting for its ministry. It dawned upon my mental vision that I was called upon to be the pastor of all these people, for five or six miles in every direction, that the Benzonia church was responsible for them all, that they had a right to look to us for service and help, and that if we failed to give it we should be unfaithful to our Master and recreant to our trust. Then I said: “Here is something worth doing. Here may be wrought out an experiment in country evangelization and rural betterment that may help to arrest the downward trend that has become so alarming in these latter days. It was for this that God has kept me here. If I can make this vision a reality, I need not pine for a larger field. If I can help others to see the vision, and inspire them with enthusiasm to make it real in larger fields than mine, and in many parts of our country, I shall never regret that I stayed by the stuff.” The vision came as a compensation. It was the reward that God gave for following his leading along those ways where natural inclinations would not have disposed me to go. God wants us to do our best and largest work. He never calls us to a smaller work. If he bids us walk along a humble path and go in an obscure way, we shall find our true life-work there. The church had for many years been much interested in both home and foreign missions. I preached frequently upon the subject, and kept it constantly before the people. Regular collections were taken for missionary objects, and the Every Member Canvass plan had long been in operation. The response was always general and liberal. In fact, those who were well acquainted with the churches of the state have often said that in proportion to its resources, its gifts were larger than those of any other church. Not only did they give money, but they also gave their sons and daughters to carry the gospel to less favored regions. Many of the young women of the church had gone to teach in home mission schools. And there came a beautiful summer Sabbath when a favorite niece, brought up in my home, and an active and useful member of the church, beloved by all, with solemn services in the little church on the hilltop was consecrated to the foreign work and sent forth with the prayers and blessings of all the people to represent them among the awakening millions of China. As I was sitting in my study one day pondering upon these things, the absurdity of the situation came over me all at once. “Here we are gathering money to send our sons and daughters to the distant parts of the earth, but we are doing absolutely nothing for scores of families that are almost within the sound of our church-bell. We feel some responsibility for the millions of people of other lands whom we have never seen, and never shall see, but we have not felt very much responsibility for those who are separated from us by only a few miles. We are anxious to give the gospel to the colored people, the Chinese, and to those of alien races; but we have felt no such anxiety for those of our own race who are not so very far away. There are many families and hundreds of people within five or six miles of our church that are practically without the gospel, as truly as are the Chinese or the South Sea Islanders. We have made no systematic effort to interest them in these things. We have given them no reason to believe that we are drawn out toward them with Christlike motives. Surely there must be something wrong in our calculations.” Then I heard the Master say, “These ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone.” And then came the vision of “The Larger Parish.” I saw the church reaching out its hand and touching tenderly but effectively all the people in the surrounding country. I saw the church feeling some responsibility for every family, and counting them all as within the bounds of its parish. I saw every family in all that wide region as tributary to the church. I saw the church making systematic plans to carry the gospel to all these outlying neighborhoods. I began to think of all those people as my parishioners as truly as were those who lived near the church and were members of it. And so the vision dawned upon me of the Larger Parish. In my own mind I annexed all the surrounding country and began to make plans for the evangelization and helping of all the people who dwelt therein. So under the stimulus of foreign missions the vision came of the work that should be done and could be done nearer home. And it may be well to add that since the work of the Larger Parish began, the contributions to foreign missions have more than doubled. There are those all over this wide territory who knew little and cared less about missions three years ago, but who now are eager to make some contribution to the support of the missionary in China, half [Pg 29] [Pg 30] [Pg 31] [Pg 32] [Pg 33] [Pg 34] [Pg 35] T of whose salary our Church is pledged to provide. And so the vision came, from above as all good visions do, but it came while walking in the pathway of duty, in the unfolding of a larger experience. He who follows the dawning light will see the vision. IV HOW THE VISION BECAME A REALITY HE chief value of visions is in their fulfilment. A visionary man is one who sees but does not do. He has revelations of splendid possibilities, but they do not materialize. The sky of his inner consciousness is all painted over with beautiful pictures, but those designs never get on the canvas or into the marble or find their fulfilment in flesh and blood. The most elaborate plans and specifications will not shelter a family nor constitute a home. They must be embodied in brick and stone and timber in order to make them valuable. Only the concreting of ideals can save the vision-gazer from becoming a visionary. It is always interesting and instructive to trace the process by which a vision is made real. Often the pathway to the goal is obscure, difficult, and tedious, but it is worth while to follow it. This chapter will be an endeavor to trace the process by which the vision of the Larger Parish became a reality. I had a clear apprehension of two things—the work to be done, and the instrument by which it must be accomplished; but just how the instrument was to accomplish the work was not so evident. Here was the church, and here were the people; but how could they be brought together to their mutual advantage? I had been a very busy man for years. My time had been fully occupied and I had not supposed it possible to take more work. How was I to multiply my activities many fold and still be efficient? The church had been active and aggressive. It had been doing large things. In the opinion of some it had been straining itself beyond reasonable limits in carrying on its work. How could it quadruple the size of its parish by annexing all the territory within a radius of five miles in every direction, and increase its constituency several times over. Would it not be swamped by its acquisitions? Would it not be overwhelmed by the number and greatness of its obligations and responsibilities? It had not adequately ministered to all the people in its smaller parish. How would it be when its boundaries were so greatly increased? These and many other doubtful questions presented themselves, and the answers were not at hand. But there were the outlying neighborhoods; without consulting them I had annexed them to my parish. There was the church; without asking its consent, in my own mind I had multiplied its work and increased its burdens many fold. I had a task with the people to make them willing to be annexed; with the church, to lead it to accept its heavier burdens and its larger responsibilities; and a still greater task to bring the church and the people into such relations that the work should be accomplished. How did I go about my task? 1. The first thing to be done was to make a survey of the field. I began to think of all the twenty-five hundred people in this Larger Parish as belonging to me. I felt a measure of responsibility for them all. We, as a church and pastor, must do something for them all, and in order to do it, we must know them all. So I started out to visit all the families in this wide territory. Many of them, of course, I knew already. But many that were more remote I had not touched closely, though in my fifteen years’ pastorate there were few who had not some acquaintance with me. I tramped around over the whole parish, living with the people, often being absent from my home for two or three days at a time, until there was scarcely a home in all that region in which I was a stranger. This was most delightful and rewarding work. There was a welcome for me everywhere. Almost without exception the people seemed pleased to come in touch with the representative of the church. Weary of body, but glad of heart, I laid myself down at night under the shelter of some hospitable farmer’s roof after having spent the evening in friendly conversation with him and his family. Such an opportunity to get up close to people is worth a score of sermons. This visiting tour occupied many weeks—in fact a large part of the autumn months was spent in this way, and in many desirable things more was accomplished in those three months than had been done in the fifteen previous years. I came to know the outside people as I had never known them before. My touch with them was warmer and closer. I came to think of them in a different way. My interest in them was more definite and more intelligent. I came to understand the field—to know its extent, its difficulties, and its encouragements—and so I was prepared to grapple with the task God had given me. The effect upon myself of these tours among the people was most salutary. Aside from the information that I gained, there was an even greater gain in sympathy, in understanding, and in the inspiration and enthusiasm that came into my own soul. I usually made these apostolic tours on foot. I would start out in the morning with my staff [Pg 36] [Pg 37] [Pg 38] [Pg 39] [Pg 40] [Pg 41] in hand with a general route previously marked out. If I saw a man plowing in the field, I would sit down with him on the plow-beam while his horses were resting, and have a good talk about his farm, his home, the matters of interest in the community, and there was almost always a good opportunity to get in a few words about the things of the Kingdom. Then at the dinner or the supper hour, when all the family were together, there was a chance to get into the home life, and to be for the time a part of the family circle. I found that when I met the people, not as a minister, but as a man and a friend, there was always a hearty and a glad response, and it was easy to secure a sympathetic hearing for my projects and plans. There was much gained in establishing such close relations with the people. Without such a basis, the work of the larger parish could hardly have been successfully carried on. 2. My task with the church, in bringing it to get my point of view, to see the vision as I saw it, and to coöperate in making it a reality, was not difficult. They were ready for the larger work—at least, they were ready to be made ready. All they needed was light and leading. This I undertook to give. I told them my vision of the Larger Parish. I held it up before them continually, preaching it on the Sabbath, and talking about it in the prayer-meeting. I described the situation as it had been revealed to me in my apostolic tramps. From week to week I could see the kindling flame of enthusiasm in the congregation. There was evidently a rising tide of interest in the wider work. The people began to see the reasonableness of it. They began to feel some sense of responsibility for it, some joy and hope as the possibility of doing it began to dawn upon them. I believe that the rank and file of our churches are more ready to march forth to larger service than most of us have thought. There is really more willingness to take up new tasks and to engage in aggressive enterprises than they have had credit for. The people want something to do. They want a work that is worth while. Many churches are languishing for a job which they may apprehend and accept—for something large enough and difficult enough to challenge their powers and kindle their enthusiasm. And when a proposition is made to them that seems sane and sensible, when they can have confidence in their leaders, they are generally ready to fall in line and to march forward with firm and steady trea...