Warren H. Wilson.

Today it is evident that it is the farmer who has his back to the wall. That which appears in the church is deeply hidden in the social and economic life of the farmer. Generally throughout the country the tiller of the soil is restless, unsatisfed and eager for change because his rewards from his work are small and the burdens laid upon him are increasingly great. The effect of this strain appears most of all in the country church, the country school and the rural household. The church thus becomes a register of the farmer's needs.

Prosperity among farmers is defined by an great agriculturalist as follows: "A farmer's prosperity means a good income; an income that enables him to bring up a family well, to give to the community and to maintain the fertility of the soil so that at the end of his use of the land it is more fertile than at the beginning." In some sections of Pennsylvania and in one or two western states farmers are prospering according to this standard. There the country churches prosper also. Prosperous farming is pervasive and thoroughgoing and registers its existence in strong

churches, efficient schools and happy homes. The task before the country church, therefore, is one of self preservation. In order to defend itself the church must become an advocate of the farmer's actual welfare. The business of the country church is to make country life worthwhile. A new type of country church is arising. In communities where the church is a confessed center of the social and economic life of the people, the church leaders become the promoters of better farming. They improve the schools. They minister to the social needs of the young people. They even improve the labor conditions.

The country church is therefore building a new rural civilization. Without this social culture religious life in the country is fleeting and its values are lost. It is necessary to maintain the status of the farming population on an equality with any other class of the population, in city or in town.

The work of the Department is in the interest of a better Christianity. Federation of churches is a spiritual experience. It is rooted in cooperative effort to get a living. When farmers work together for a livelihood they will consolidate and federate their church

es.

Denominations will remain. The backing of a denomination is essential to an effective country church, but union of spirit and where possible, organic union, are an essential part of the service of the country church to its community.

In the readjustment of church life in the country under the present strain and pressure many churches are being closed, because they are unfit. The type of country church is changing and the successful church in the country is the builder of the community. Its minister is a statesman and its people are servants of the whole population in every common need.

Mr. W. P. Shriver.

THE

HE recent immigration to this country, largely out of southern and southeastern Europe and settling in the eastern and central states at the great industrial centers, is creating a new home mission field of tremendous and exacting proportions. It challenges the Church anew on the side of its sympathy, of its real desire to minister in the spirit of Jesus Christ to the man on the margin. It makes demands upon the resourcefulness of the Church, upon its ability to readapt itself to new and changing conditions, and calls for a new leadership. The Department of Immigration is the medium through which the Board of Home Missions expresses its active participation. Work at twentysix different centers is maintained in the metropolitan district, with a force of forty pastors, visitors and assistants. Much of this work is on a large scale, as the American Parish, embracing the entire ministry of the Presbyterian Church to a community, largely foreign, of three hundred thousand. Cooperation is also extended to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Indianapolis, Kansas City, St. Louis and San Francisco in developing projects of large significance. Rural immigrant communities, particularly the Bohemian communities of the Central West and of Texas, are not overlooked. Work is conducted among Italians, Bohemians, Poles, Ruthenians, Hungarians,. Scandinavians, Syrians, Armenians and Jews, and the social and religious conditions of all these people are carefully studied. The Department co-operates in making such surveys as are now under way in Baltimore, where the immigrant population in seven wards is being studied. On the opposite page, one of the Presbyterian Churches in this city is shown. The read

justment of such churches to the new conditions at their very doors is a phase of the work of the Department. A survey of the great coke regions of the Presbytery of Redstone, Pennsylvania, is also in process. The Department is committed to a policy which contemplates the large and worthy handling of this new ministry of the Church in the seething centers of immigrant and industrial life. It maintains, that the typical "Mission in a store" is an utterly inadequate and impossible solution. It advocates well equipped and intelligently manned centers of the best American Christian life, as presenting the type to which our new population may tend to conform. It points to the Gary Southside Chapel and Neighborhood House at this great center of the steel industry as a worthy sort of undertaking. It advocates as a most effective approach to city immigrant communities the Daily Vacation Bible School. Seven of these schools, enrolling 2,000 children were conducted last summer in New York. Similar groups of schools are being projected for Baltimore and Cleveland next summer. As the crux of the question today rests in the leadership, the Department is at once concerned. It announces for immediate appointment two Immigration Fellowships, the first of a series, of $1,000 each, for resident study abroad; the holders of these Fellowships will engage in home mission work in this country. Summer scholarships are also offered to Seminary students. An informing literature is at the disposal of our churches upon request.

The following are among recent leaflets: Italian Traits; The Discovery of the Pole; The Bohemians of Texas; The Old and New Immigration; from the brief statement of the conclusions and recommendations of the Federal Immigration Commission; A Typical Building for a City Immigrant Community; What is the Presbyterian Church Doing for the Immigrant; Gary; Our Ministry to the Immigrant, a symposium; and a large illustrated sheet of Typical Buildings employed by the Presbyterian Church in its work among recent immigrant populations.