The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1874-10-28
THE COUNTRY MINISTER.

~'~-SSANAAS'
1t contains some very practical thoughts ad-
mirably expressed. l respectfully submit to
the Central Presbyterian some passages, for
in It's columns, if deemed, by
its editor, worthy of place there. The
speaker describes the pastor of one of the
interior villages, who had quietly been doing
his work for many years, and whose preach
ing had received Gods blessing. After de-
scribing one of the sermons of this pastor
and his audience, he adds:
"I have drawn the picture because it is
the best one that l have ever seen of the
power of religion and its institutions in our
towns and villages, and the necessity that
there is of maintaining divine worship on the
hill tops even in the back country. have
been speaking of town whose whole popu-
lation is not two thousand; probably nearer
one thousand than two. have drawn this
picture because within the last fortnight |
have been forced to look at two parishes,
where the diminutiOn of population threatens
to cut off all worship and leave the people,
if not Goddess, at least without religious
convocation. l cannot tell you how strongly
| feel that the maintenance Of order and OF
morals depends upon the perpetuity of pub
lie worship in our small towns. You may
say that not more than hundred out of a
thousand will come to the church; and that
the picture which | have drawn is utterly
unrelated to the drowsy and vacuous pray
ing and preaching in many parishes. Per-
haps so; it might be idle to dispute this even
if did not accept it. But tell you, men
and women, the fact that in these neglected
and deserted towns there lives such man
and family about him, where God and his
law and his name and his day are reverenced
and proclaimed, by deed as we'll as by word,
is what we may count on as our chief hope
for the future. The church rising in the
village, it's spire out-topping the highest
trees, it's vestbules knitting the men and wo-
men into neighborly kindness, its pulpit the
last stronghold,Of piety, why that very build
ing is protest, and an eloquent one, against
sin. Men who have no higher interest than
the value of their property are not worldly
wise even, if they do not see that for a holy
man to speak within those walls, and 60 to
and fro under those trees, and knit together
all that is law-abiding, moral and grand in
that town, is the highest of all needs to en-
sure order and prosperity. And if that man
is not dull; if he has soul and is not afraid
to let it out; if he has mind and is not
afraid to use it; if he be even awkward and
ill-clothed, yet good, true, pure, man-lOviDg
and God fearing-there is place for him,
and the Home Missionary Society has a
great call to keep him there, and you and
these other wealthy congregations have a
great call to sustain the Home Missionary
Society, and to help keep the fame burning
in every town and village and hamlet through
out the State.
Consider the boon that one educated min
lister is to rural town, even from lower
side than l have limited at. See what an
advantage that in place from which the
streams of young life are constantly flowing
city-ward, there is a man of education, who
can watch over the schools, inaugurate lee
lures, buy and lend books, foster the local
history, aud be the living centre of those in
terests which are patriotic and educational.
Then look at that side which was limited at
a few moments ago, the strength which Oh
a mans presence gives to law and order;
the rebuke which his very life is constantly
giving to profanity and brawling and drunk.
enness and impurity Think how such
man naturally fosters quiet, the keeping up
of neatness and beauty in buildings, the gen
eral good husbandry of the town. And if,
as is often the case, be be fond of tilling the
ground, what an aid his knowledge of books
can be to him, in receiving the best ideas of
the age, and in giving hints as to improved
varities of fruits and grains. None quicker
than he to seize the recorded experiences of
able cultivators, and to bring them into i'm
mediate use. And these advantages all aside
of the immediate work of his life, the bring
ing of the gospel to bear upon the lives of
men. For after all, the sermon is the right
arm of the minister's power, when based in a.
godly and consistent life And l could
point you to a parish other than the one
which am depicting day, where the min
lister has been laboring steadily for thirty
seven years, in quiet, beautiful town,
farming community, where books are scarce,
and yet with such success that under the
powerful stimulus of his mind and his heart
the sermon and not the book being the means
of culture in that place, generation has
been trained up to remarkable intelligence
and piety, and a work has been done which
generations cannot eface.
would not limit the field to the little
towns, but in my own contemplation of the
wide foreign field, this is point of view
which greatly engrosses me. As meet men
cold and cynical, who taunt the churches
with sending men to Asia and Africa when
they are needed at home, think of what
great thing it is to plant Christian home
out in the jungle, out on the highlands of
India, out in the forests of Africa, and let
those people simply live, be clothed, be de-
cent, be orderly, eat good food, use imple-
neuts, be industrious, be loving, be neigh
borly, be in one word, Christian. 1t may be
that good deal of crudeness exists in mis-
sionary effort, a good deal of miSspprehen-
sion about reaching the heather mind but
let that alone; that will all be made right
with more experience, and the ways thither
are opening fast; but man among US who
will deny himself of a dollar now and then
in the hope of doing good, can have no rea-
,onable doubt that the organization by which
Christian families are enabled to live among
The savages and the heather, ought to com
nand the confidence not of the Christian
merely, but of the philanthrophiSt. the NOR
slist, and the man of business. Even from
;he last point of view, it may be said that
here is no better way of extending the mar