Norwich bulletin., 1909-07-17


 Why don't farmers go to church? In my section they don't come and can't be made to. Take it up in one of your talks So writes an old friend, clergyman before whose pull pit I used to sit, who is now minis tering to parish in central New York. And he adds. later in his let ter: Don't fail to take this up.
 When | read that, shivered. If there are any two things which the average layman. talking or writing to a mixed audience of democrats, re- publicans and mugwumps-Congre tionalists, Catholics, Methodists, Uni- versalists and agnostics. had better let alone, the two are politics and relig- ion. Not but that they are the two very highest and most important top ics of human interest; for they are But because both words have come to have a popular significance quite dif- ferent from their original and true meaning. What is "politics"2 It is The science of government; that part of ethics which has to do with the reg ulation and government of a nation or state" etc Please note that word ethics" defined as The science of human duty'' But when one talks or writes of politics" the average man understands him as. writing about that scramble for partisan success or for spells of office or for governmental graft which is only a cancerous and disgusting excrescence on the real body of true politics. And what is re- ligion? I quote again the same &C., cepted authority in definition: The recognition of God as an object of worship, love and obedience" But when you talk or write about relig- ion to the average man and woman they understand by it denominational- ism or ecclesiasticism. two very diff ferent things.
 the average man is prejudiced and vindictively stubborn about, they are his party and his candidate. And if there is any one thing that the aver age woman is "sotv about it is her particular church. Therefore the plain Zimmerman who has set to himself a simpler and. perhaps, lower task--that of stimulating in his brother farmers an interest in the science of agricul- ture and higher ideals in the art of arming-therefore he has thought it 'wise to avoid these two great prob 1ems, which are out of his. limited province, and before both of which the signboard of Danger is stuck up, big and black. But this particular friend is one of those, rare examples of chivalric devotion to duty combined with a phenomenal capacity for talk ing blame for others on his own shoul- ders, and his plaint has moved me to, for once, a little dash past that dan ger-sign. hope you'll all under stand that there isn't anything per sonal or denominati0nal in anything I
 may say. Above all, please accept the assurance, here and now, that in such a sacred matter as ones relations with his God and his own soul, assume no authority and attempt no guidance of others.
 You see, ir the case of this particu- lar correspondent, know him. He isn't blaming the farmers who don't come to his church one little bit. Down in the bottom of his self depreciating heart he's blaming himself because. they don't come: thinks that he has failed in some particular is lacking in some respect, and he is racking brain and heart to discover what he has done that he ought not to have done or what he has left undone that he ought to have done. When faithful servant holds that attitude about his work and it's outcome and about his own relations with his fellow servants, my heart boils over in a great ebulH- tion of sympathy Since getting his note I've been thinking a lot about the matter. and have been observing people within my own little bishopric.
 In the first place, is it the fact that farmers don't go to church? In my rural town there are five churches, a Baptist, an Episcopalian, a Congrega- tionalist, a Catholic, and a Methodist find, by observation, that practically Ax~A Co s. Al. goes to his church regularly The proportion who attend the Protestant churches is much smaller. Now, isn't 1t possible that the very difference in spirit between the two great organ izations, the Catholic church and the Protestant church, may explain some of the difference in practice? The Catholic church magnifes itself as a church and it's priesthood as having peculiar spiritual functions. It speaks with authority and in tones of com mand. Professionalism. on the other hand, was originally and still is, in spirit, a protest against this claim of authority. It asserts every mans individual priesthood Its pulpits. are occupied not by priests and law sivers, but by ministers, i. e.. servants, to the congregations. Now, isn't it possible. without expressing any opin ion as to the truth of either conten- tention, to see that the one spirit tends to a strengthening of ecclesias- tical bendss while the other tends to- wards loosenfng if not real disin- tegration of them? Assuming that two men, following the two lines, are fqually religious, l. e., equal in their Frecognition of God as an object of worship, love and obedience,'' it is epparent that one must find his re- 0f fArz fx n.t-