THE CHURCHES IN THE EIGHTEEN COUNTIES
In the Eighteen Counties of Southeastern Ohio some of the older and
stronger denominations are well represented, as Table C shows. (See page
39.) No less than 526, or more than one-third, of the total number of
churches are Methodist Episcopal. Nearly one-tenth are United Brethren in
Christ, another tenth Baptist, one-fifteenth Christian, and one-fifteenth
Presbyterian; while other powerful denominations are also present. It is
evident that the failure of the churches in this area cannot be laid to
the weakness or poverty of the denominations represented, for they are for
the most part neither weak nor poor. Ohio, moreover, is a wealthy State,
and its churches make large contributions for church work and church
extension both in America and abroad.
It has been too commonly held in the past that missionary effort should
consist largely in organizing and building churches. We do not believe
that proposition is sound. In rural Ohio the worst moral and religious
conditions are found where there are the largest number of churches in
proportion to the number of inhabitants.
In 39 counties out of a total of 88 in the State, there is one country
church for each 275 people or less. (See Map 5 and Table A, column 5.) Of
these 39 counties, 17 are among the Eighteen Counties under our special
consideration. Outside these Eighteen Counties and the counties contiguous
to them, no county has an average of less than 228 persons to a church,
but it appears that Washington has one church for 226 persons, Monroe one
for 214, Pike one for 211, Gallia one for 197, Morgan one for 194, Jackson
one for 193, while Vinton has one for 182, and Meigs one church for 178.
In the rural sections of these Eighteen Counties there are 1,542 churches
and 248 townships, or more than 6 churches to a township.
While the fact that this region is more difficult to travel, because more
hilly, than many other parts of the State might constitute a reason for
having many churches, it certainly cannot be held that the bad moral and
religious conditions which exist are due to lack of a sufficient number of
them. Nor is support here to be found for the contention sometimes made
that religious work thrives best under competition.
The larger the number of churches in proportion to the population, the
more difficult it obviously becomes to secure, support, and retain
resident pastors. In proportion to the number of churches, the Eighteen
Counties have a comparatively small number of ministers. (See Map 6 and
Table A, column 6.) In the State as a whole, about one-third, or 34 per
cent, of the churches have resident ministers. In only three counties
outside the Eighteen is it true that less than one-fourth of the churches
have them. These are Delaware, Coshocton, and Pickaway, and the latter is
one of the bordering counties. But in 13 of the Eighteen Counties less
than one-fourth of the churches have resident ministers. It will be noted
that less than one-fifth of the churches in Scioto, Pike, Lawrence, and
Meigs Counties have resident ministers, one-sixth in Morgan County, and
less than one-sixth in Jackson, Hocking, and Gallia.
In the Eighteen Counties the number of resident ministers in proportion to
the population, as well as in proportion to the number of churches, is
small. (See Map 7 and Table A, column 7.) There are 24 counties in Ohio in
which there are more than 1,000 persons for each resident minister, of
which 13 are among the Eighteen Counties under consideration, and three
among the bordering counties. Noble County has a resident minister to
every 1,240 persons, Gallia to every 1,396, Lawrence to every 1,450,
Pickaway to every 1,458, while Hocking has only one to 1,693, or nearly
1,700 persons. Here, as in most rural sections, an absentee ministry is
necessarily ineffective. (See pages 50-51.)
The foregoing facts afford convincing evidence that the church in this
region is rendering poor service--how poor the reader may judge from the
following description of the religious and ecclesiastical conditions found
by Mr. Gill in his personal investigation on the ground.
For the most part the farm people of these Eighteen Counties are very
religious. This is attested not merely by the large number of churches,
but also by the frequency of well-attended revival services, held in
spring, summer, autumn, and winter. (In Pike County, for example, no less
than 1,500 revival services were held in thirty years, or an average of 50
each year.) Yet a normal, wholesome religion, bearing as its fruit better
living and all-round human development, and cherished and propagated by
sane and sober-minded people, is rarely known. The main function of a
church, according to the popular conception, is to hold these protracted
meetings, to stir up religious emotion, and, under its influence, to bring
to pass certain psychological experiences. The idea seems to be dominant
in nearly all the denominations and churches that the presence of the
Deity is made known mainly, if not solely, through states of intense
emotion which may be stimulated in religious assemblies. Such emotion is
held to be not only a manifestation of the Deity's presence, but also a
proof of His existence. No man is held to be religious or saved from evil
destiny unless he has had such experience. It becomes, therefore, the
business of the preacher of the church to create conditions favorable to
the experiencing of these emotions.
Officials of denominations to which more than two-thirds of the churches
belong encourage or permit the promotion of a religion of the excessively
emotional type, which encourages rolling upon the floor by men, women, and
children, and going into trances, while some things which have happened in
the regular services of a church in one of the largest denominations
cannot properly be described in print. The leaders of a religious cult
commonly called Holy Rollers seem to be most efficient in this direction.
The character of their services and activities produce the results
desired, according to the traditions accepted and proclaimed for
generations by ignorant preachers to a nonprogressive people.
A Holy Roller movement was started in Pike County in the year 1902. It has
steadily been gaining ground ever since, and has never been more
flourishing than now. It is the livest sect in this and neighboring
counties. Its meetings are large and full of enthusiasm. Except the
churches of this cult, very few are now left in the western half of Pike
County which show any activity whatever. In one district of 150 square
miles (in which there are 1,200 children enrolled in the schools and in
all 1,600 young people from the ages of six to twenty) no churches were
holding services in 1917 except those of the Holy Rollers.
The seasons of protracted Holy Roller meetings often last for several
weeks. Frequently they begin each day at 10.00 A. M. and continue until
2.00 A. M. the next day, with intermissions for meals. These meetings are
characterized by much singing, with music well adapted to rythmic motions
of the body, by dancing and clapping the hands, sometimes by shouting and
joyous screaming, rolling upon the floor, tumbling together of men and
women in heaps, trances, while at least one of their preachers has
exercised hypnotic power over some of his followers and has put them
through stunts in no way differing from those of the professional
hypnotist showman who, in times past, for the price of admission, has
amused and astonished his audience with exhibitions of his skill.
In one village where Mr. Gill attended a church belonging to this
movement, it was the only religious organization holding services or
showing any signs of life. Although at this service the building was full
to its capacity, as is usual with meetings of this kind, the church not
only had no Sunday school, but its leaders kept the children away from one
which a missionary of the American Sunday School Union was trying to start
in the neighborhood. Three-fourths of the parents of the fifty pupils in
the local school were adherents of this cult, yet its leaders opposed
having better day schools. The school principal, under the direction of
the County School Superintendent, tried to hold literary meetings for
intellectual and social improvement, but under the influence of the Holy
Roller leaders, the parents refused to let their children attend, and the
enterprise was defeated. Apparently no meeting for any purpose is to be
tolerated except the Holy Roller meetings themselves. These theoretically
and in fact take the place of all other gatherings.
The Holy Roller church in this community, as elsewhere, in its total
influence promotes immorality. It has a tendency to break up families and
destroy the peace and harmony of the neighborhood. In the judgment of the
more sober-minded people, the Holy Roller movement spoils the life of the
community wherever it goes.
Although the Holy Roller cult apparently was not started in this region
until a few years ago, it would seem that the religious activities of the
older denominational churches were but a good preparation for it. In fact,
good soil is found for sprouting the seed of Holy Rollerism in many
sections of the State. The difference in religious beliefs and ideals
between the Holy Rollers and the preachers of other denominations in the
Eighteen Counties too often is not easily detected. Denominations to which
at least two-thirds of the churches belong employ many men and women as
preachers who are extremely ignorant.
In one of its districts, nearly half of the twenty or thirty ministers of
the largest denomination in the State did not have a common school
education. It is usual to find ministers intellectually inferior to a
number of families whom they are supposed to lead and teach. In some
districts a considerable proportion of the preachers have had no more than
three or four grades of common school instruction. Some cannot write their
own names correctly. Accordingly religious education is neglected. The
people apparently have been untouched by the general advance in religious
knowledge during the past century.
Many intelligent people in the Eighteen Counties deplore these conditions
and would be glad to have churches of a different type. But it is also
very common to find among the more prosperous, especially in the fertile
river valleys, a spirit of utter indifference towards religion, and often
of gross materialism. Under such circumstances it is not surprising to
find that in several sections much hostility to institutional religion
exists. It is given expression by rural hoodlums who cut to pieces
harnesses and slash tires belonging to ministers or laymen who attend
religious gatherings, while in some communities stones are thrown through
the windows of buildings where public worship is being held.
While it is true that out of the poorest and most unfortunate districts
bright boys and girls frequently emerge, escape their surroundings, and
become good citizens, it is none the less true that a large proportion of
those who remain have no reasonable chance for wholesome development.
The bad influence of the Eighteen Counties extends far beyond their
borders. Out of them many farm laborers have gone to communities to the
north and northwest, often with deplorable results to the social,
religious, and moral conditions of the communities where they are
employed. (See Table B.) It is calculated that no less than 61,000 persons
emigrated in the ten-year period from 1900 to 1910 from the strictly rural
districts of _sixteen_ of the Eighteen Counties.
In Madison, a fertile county near the center of the State, in an area
sixteen miles long and from seven to eleven miles wide, there are three
closed and no active churches. One of the causes of this condition is the
fact that the farm laborers imported by the owners of large tracts of
lands were never made familiar, before they came, with a normal type of
religion. These men come from the Eighteen Counties or from sections
across the Ohio River where the conditions are very much the same. In
parts of several other counties the situation brought about by similar
immigration is extremely bad.
The Eighteen Counties demand missionary activity on the part of the church
as a whole, not only for the sake of the unfortunate people who live in
them, but also for the sake of the other regions whose welfare is
threatened by the transfer of low standards of all kinds, which, like a
forest fire, are creeping away from the region where they originated.
Among the large number of intelligent persons who know and deplore the
situation in typical communities of southeastern Ohio, very few seem to
cherish hope of improvement. Such pessimism appears to be unjustified.
Good work is now being done by missionaries of the American Sunday School
Union. What is more important, there is much promise that the trouble can
be reached and cured by the modern country church movement, which is
already making real progress in Ohio. As a result of this movement, for
example, the Board of Home Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church has,
for the first time, appropriated missionary funds to be used in this
section, while one of the District Superintendents of the same
denomination is carrying out a radically changed program for the churches
under his supervision.
[Illustration: MAP A WHERE CONDITIONS DEMAND MISSIONARY AID]
[Illustration: MAP 1 HIGH DEATH RATES FROM TUBERCULOSIS]
[Illustration: MAP 2 HIGH RATES OF ILLEGITIMACY]
[Illustration: MAP 3 WHERE ILLITERACY ABOUNDS]
[Illustration: MAP 4 DISTRIBUTION OF FOREIGN BORN WHITES]
[Illustration: MAP 5 EXCESSIVE OVER-CHURCHING]
[Illustration: MAP 6 CHURCHES MANY BUT MINISTERS FEW]
[Illustration: MAP 7 NUMBER OF PERSONS TO A RESIDENT MINISTER]
[Illustration: MAP 8 VALUE OF FARM PROPERTY IN THE YEAR 1910]
[Illustration: MAP 9 INCREASE IN VALUE OF FARM PROPERTY]
[Illustration: MAP 10 RICH LAND AND POOR LAND]
TABLE A
SHOWING THAT IN A GROUP OF 18 COUNTIES IN SOUTHEASTERN OHIO THERE IS AN
EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF PREVENTABLE DISEASE AND ILLITERACY, AN EXCESSIVE
NUMBER OF ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS, EXCESSIVE OVERCHURCHING, A VERY SMALL
NUMBER OF RESIDENT MINISTERS IN PROPORTION TO THE NUMBER OF CHURCHES AND
NUMBER OF PEOPLE, THAT AS COMPARED WITH OTHER SECTIONS THE TOTAL VALUE OF
FARM PROPERTY IS SMALL AND THE INCREASE IN VALUE SLIGHT
Key:
1 _Average annual rate of deaths from tuberculosis of the lungs per
100,000 persons, 1909, 1910, 1911_
2 _Average annual rate per 100,000 population of illegitimate births
for 1909, 1910_
3 _Per cent of illiterate males of voting age, 1910_
4 _Per cent of total population who were foreign born white, 1910_
5 _Number of persons to a church_
6 _Per cent of churches which have resident ministers_
7 _Number of persons to each resident minister_
8 _Number of millions of dollars at which farm property is valued_
9 _Per cent increase in value of farm property 1900-1910_
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
For State,
88 counties 125 43.9 4.2 12.5 279 34 825 59
Adams 147 6.9 0.5 266 1031 10 16
Athens 155 65 7.4 5.3 229 21 1086 10 16
Brown 193 4.3 1.9 1129 15
Clermont 164 249 14
Gallia 184 76 8.1 1.2 197 14 1396 7 13
Highland 145 252
Hocking 78 8.6 3.5 235 14 1693 6
Jackson 147 123 9.5 2 193 16 1222 5
Lawrence 172 113 11.6 1.8 267 18 1450 5 19
Meigs 158 178 18 1010 8
Monroe 78 5.4 2.4 214 24 10 19
Morgan 50 194 17 1150 9 25
Noble 67 4.5 3.2 248 20 1240 11
Pike 216 89 10.7 1.4 211 18 1209 6
Ross 175 87 7.4 2.2 252
Scioto 169 73 7.7 3 233 19 1211 8
Vinton 49 8.4 .8 182 22 4 12
Washington 58 4.5 2.5 226 21 1087 14 25
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Average for 18 counties 2.3
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Belmont 55 7.1 15.1 1107
Clinton
Fairfield 222
Fayette 55 6.2 .7 257 1234
Guernsey 55 7.8 9.2 269 13
Hamilton 217 66 14.3
Muskingum 48 224
Perry 4.6 7.3 9
Pickaway 130 61 5.7 1.8 22 1458
Warren 271
TABLE B
SHOWING CALCULATED NUMBER OF PERSONS WHO MIGRATED FROM THE RURAL DISTRICTS
OF SIXTEEN COUNTIES IN SOUTHEASTERN OHIO 1900-1910
Key:
1 _Population of strictly rural townships, 1910_
2 _Excess of birth rate over death rate_
3 _Population of strictly rural townships, 1900_
4 _Calculated total population in 1910 had there been no migration_
5 _Calculated no. persons who migrated 1900-1910_
1 2 3 4 5
Total 61,418
Adams 24,775 12.15 26,328 29,432 4,677
Brown 24,832 4.93 28,237 30,241 5,409
Clermont 29,551 3.81 31,610 33,377 3,826
Gallia 19,546 2.73 20,973 21,527 1,981
Highland 17,382 4.22 19,504 20,283 2,901
Hocking 16,934 12.72 19,183 21,380 4,446
Jackson 10,996 12.47 12,009 13,444 2,448
Lawrence 23,202 14.83 24,644 28,192 4,990
Meigs 16,162 1.96 18,961 19,306 3,144
Monroe 19,940 13.73 23,373 26,347 6,407
Morgan 16,097 8.07 17,905 20,777 4,680
Noble 18,601 11.28 19,466 21,613 3,012
Pike 15,723 11.48 18,172 20,118 4,395
Ross 22,460 5.6 25,758 25,893 3,433
Vinton 13,096 9.4 15,330 15,464 2,368
Washington 29,409 7.4 32,481 32,710 3,301
TABLE C
DENOMINATIONS OF THE CHURCHES IN EIGHTEEN COUNTIES OF SOUTHEASTERN OHIO
Key:
1 _Churches in 248 strictly rural townships_
2 _Other rural churches_
3 _All rural churches_
1 2 3
Total 1,542 593 2,135
Methodist Episcopal 526 216 742
United Brethren 138 43 181
Baptist 124 26 150
Christian 97 13 110
Presbyterian 96 40 136
Disciples 87 39 126
Methodist Protestant 63 25 88
Christian Union 46 5 51
Catholic 43 22 65
Non-Progressive Disciples 28 3 31
Radical United Brethren 26 4 30
Lutheran 21 28 49
Congregational 17 1 18
Reformed 14 16 30
German Evangelical 14 1 15
United Presbyterian 10 23 33
Friends 10 21 31
All others 182 67 249