The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1915-10-13
FOR BENNINGTON COUNTY
DEVELOPMENT AND
BETTERMENT
Department Edited by Secretary
Willard Bartlett of the County
Association.
Dorset Campaign in Full Swing.

4
The interest of all of Dorset west
of the mountain is centered in the
Campaign which is being conducted
by the citizens in cooperation with
the Improvement Association. All
the people of the town are uniting to
make the Campaign a success. All
are looking ahead to the coming of
the Williams College men at the end
of the week A more complete ac-
count of the meetings will be given
next week
The Church and the Community
| We are indebted to Rev Geo. s.
Mills of Bennington, Vermont, for the
following article on The Church and
the Community" All who are inter
ested in the churches and in social
welfare organizations viii be inter
ested to read Mr. Mills scholarly and
practical article.
Let me speak first of fitting our
program for the new efficiency of the
| church to the exact place where we
are-the need in our own village or
! town or city as best we are able to
| understand that need The church in
| the community must be such a gen
orator and distributor of ideas, senti-
ments, plans, as will change that
community for the better physically
and socially. If the community
needs to be taught how to grow pota-
toes and corn, let the church see to
| it that the community is taught Just
| that. If it needs to be taught what
is wholesome recreation for young
| people and how to go about this, let
the church be responsible for teach
| ing just that. The end is not to grow
potatoes, but to grow souls, not TO
train baseball teams, but to train
| character, but potatoes and baseball
may come incidentally first; they are
worth something in themselves as
pure material satisfactions, and they
may be worth more as means OF ap-
proach to the moral ideal and as evil
| dences of it. And this again is to say
that the church must moralize and
| idealize its community By whatever
simple, ordinary, first hand means
| are available.
TO make practical the gospel is
always a community service. 1t is
not to build up the church or glorify
the church for it's own sake. For
[ their sakes l sanctify myself We
who are Congregationahsts have
been saying in recent years that we
| ought to be doing more on our own
/ account. / am not so sure. Yes and
no. Without undertaking our denomi
national self-consciousness or the
wisdom of improving it in this parti-
! cular and that and sturdily appreciat-
ing our distinct contribution to the
| sum total Of modern Christianity,
nevertheless we must be grounded in
the cardinal principle OF Jesus great
word, and as churches quite as much
| as individuals make ourselves
| strong and beautiful and good not for
our own sakes hut for the common
| life We cannot save our corporate
| soul alone; and there is no reason in
| trying to preserve Congregationalism
except as we are able to render it in
| creasingly seryiceable. In some of
| our rural communities it might be
we'll for the Congregational church to
die or to depart with its remnant in
| to the body of some other church that
! discloses more vitality and has sue
| Ceeded in making itself really useful.
! If in any community the faithful ones
in church of our order maintain it
/ is the other church which ought to
die or be absorbed let them prove
! their faith by their works. The
church, which has the right to live, is
the church in fact which does live in
the total interests of the community,
| the larger life of the people. 1t is
is not its historic antiquity which af-
| fosds church its chief claim to sup
port. Nor is it's cleyerness in eXcita-
tion of popular interest, as with NOR
| al sensations and reViyals and
crowds, going to win for it the priori-
| ty.
| 1T is only ten years ago and lit
| tie more that deacon of one of our
| strong New England churches in
showing me about the property, open
ed the door into the new kitchen mar
rowly and apologi2ed for having such
an institution under the sacred roof
lit was a concession to modernism
that grieved him to the quick How
fast this employment of the sociable
and the amusing is becoming our
church task almost equally with at
| tention to the spiritualities of the
| old days! Enter the latest parish
house and where are you? Billiard
tables, basket ball cage, gymnasium
| equipment, closets containing the re-
gala of youthful secret societies
truly it looks very secular. But did
we not learn theoretically years ago
under the tutelage of the new bord-
er of social prophets that there was