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THE MAKING OF A
COUNTRY PARISH
* * * * *
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
* * * * *
[Illustration: 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.
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
For 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 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
The 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_.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE LARGER PARISH
(WEST HALF OF BENZIE COUNTY, MICHIGAN)]
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
The 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 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 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.
[Illustration: CRYSTAL LAKE AND BEULAH FROM BENZONIA]
II
SOME CONVICTIONS OUT OF WHICH THE VISION CAME
A 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 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 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
The 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 cooperate 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 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 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
The 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 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 cooperate 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.