FARMER SMITH AND THE COUNTRY CHURCH

FRED EASTMAN Secretary Matinecock Neighborhood Association, Locust Valley, N. Y.

Farmer Smith needs help. He needs it here and now. He is trying to keep his family supplied with food and clothes. He is struggling to give his children an education and at the same time to pay off the mortgage on the farm and to save enough to keep his wife and himself from want in their old age. All around him are those who are waging the same battle, but they give him little help. Each one fights alone, as his father did before him.

Twelve years ago Farmer Smith had a $5,000 farm. It yielded him an income of about $500. That was a return of 10 per cent. Today, because of the general rise in land values, that farm is worth $10,000. It yields him about $700. It is now only a 7 per cent investment. His profits have decreased. Moreover, his land is poorer than it was twelve years ago. Smith never learned how to farm intensively. He knows only the crude methods used by his father in the days of virgin soil. The years ahead give him no promise that he will be able to make even as much from his farm as he is making now.

The economic pinch has left its marks upon his social life. Many of his old neighbors have sold their farms and moved away. Some have left their farms in the hands of tenants who are robbing the land of its fertility. Community spirit has vanished. The old forms of recreation have lapsed with the passing of the settled population. No new forms have taken their place except in the towns, and these are usually of a character that would not be tolerated in the country. Smith’s boy is waiting his first opportunity to get off the farm. His has been a life of all work and no play, and while it has not exactly made him a dull boy, it has made him hate farming. Smith’s wife is leading the life of a drudge, and she swears her daughters are not going to live on the farm if she can help it. With the stagnation in social life has come stagnation in moral and religious life, for morals do not flourish in a stagnant community.

Yes, Smith needs help. He needs to know how to farm more scientifically. He needs a better income. He needs to know how to organize with his fellow farmers to protect themselves against the inroads of the middlemen and the tenants. He needs better markets for his crops and better transportation facilities to those markets. He needs a school for his children that will give them as good an education as they would get in any city school, a school that will instill in them a love of the country, a knowledge of farming and an appreciation of its economic significance. He needs more recreation facilities for the whole family. He needs a handier kitchen for his wife and daughter and many more opportunities for them to broaden their lives and enrich their minds in literary and social activities.

The question is, Should the church give it? Should it go to Farmer Smith and say:

“Smith, I am a bit ashamed of myself; I have not been doing for you what I ought. I have been preaching about Elysian fields and allowing the riches of bluegrass, corn and wheat fields to be squandered with prodigal hand; I have been trying to pave your road to Glory Land, but I have paid no attention to your road to the nearest market; I have talked about mansions in the skies and cared little about the buildings in which you and your family must spend your lives here and now; I have been teaching your children God’s word in the Bible, but I have left his word in the rivers and the hills, in the grass and the trees, without prophet, witness, or defender.

“Forgive me, Smith; I am not going to do it any more. I am going to take an interest in your every day affairs—your crops, your stock, your markets, your school, your lodge and your recreations. I am going to see if I can help you in your effort to get your boy started on a farm of his own. I’ve preached a long time against Sunday baseball; now I’m going to try to give your children so much recreation through the week that they won’t care for it on Sunday. I am going to take as one of the articles of my creed, ‘I believe in better roads for Smith, and I propose to have them.’ I am going to try to save you and your family not only for Paradise, but for America and American farms.”

Should the country church take its place shoulder to shoulder with Smith in the line in which he is battling for existence? Should it take up the task of encouraging agricultural organizations that will work for more scientific farming, better roads and better markets? Should it throw open its doors, not three hours a week but three hours a day, to Smith’s sons and daughters that they may have a place to meet and to play and to mingle with each other in literary, athletic and social activities? Should the church forget all about itself and its creedal and polemic differences? Should it forget its own salvation in its effort to save Smith? Should it lose itself in his service, even if some churches have to die in the attempt, as long ago their Master died?

Should it?