The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1915-05-22
MISSION Of THE
RURAL CHURCH
SHOULD BE UNIVERSITY OF RE-
LIGIoUS LEARNING.
Duty of Christianity to EvangeIlze the
World.
BY Rev. Jno. A. Rice, D. D.

BY Rev. Jno. A. Rice, D. D.
st. Louis. Mo.
Some years ago, the question was
asked: What is a college? The at
tempt to answer it shook the educa-
tional world in America from center
to circumference. Another question is
now beginning to be asked: What Is
a church? Without undertaking to
give a definition of it, let me ask, in
this initial paper, what the church
is for? The New Testament reveals
three distinct tasks to which it is
committed.
First, that of evangelization. The
church is divinely commissioned to
reach for the lowest and the least
man in the least land and offer him
sonship to the Eternal God; offer him
a divine power, which lifts him out
of the bog and places him upon the
highest levels of human life, where
God and the soul are in fellowship.
This alone were an immense priv
ilege.
Teaching the Art of Living.
The church is commissioned also
to teach and train those who are
rich with it's evangelistic message.
The term, Religious Education, has
come to mean a specific thing in u
country, namely, the training of the
people in the local church in those
deep matters which pertain to the
art of living. l am not now speaking
of the work of education in schools.
colleges and universities, but the work
d, education at our doors, in the con-
gregation. Every agency in reach
should be employed to the utmost in
this important mission. Indeed. the
local church could be made a sort of
university for all the people, in which
the simple, practical arts and virtues
of everyday life should be taught and
enforced. Only recently has this
special phase of the church's work re-
ceived anything like adequate atten-
ton. The New Testament word for
it is Publication.
School of Religion Needed.
OF course, the Sunday School is the
center for all this work, although the
activities of the church should extend
through the entire week and the Sum
day School should cease to be so
named. 1t should be called the School
of Religion or the Church School or
something else that indicates it to be
an allthe-week activity. During this
time various and sundry clubs, classes,
musical organizations, culture courses,
as well as distinctly religious meetings,
should be held. Thickly settled neigh
borhoods, as we shall see, offer fine
opportunities for the development OF
things spiritual. ,
The third task to which the church
is committed is that of Outstanding
the social order; that of infusing the
spirit of Jesus into every nook and
corner of our life. Nothing is foreign
to the interest of the church.
Neighborly Love Essential.
II religion pervades and colors the
whole life then ours is serious BUSH
ness, for it will let no corner of the
world escape it's influence. The sooner
we learn that Christianity is not a
thing to be practiced in a corner the
better for the world. The question of
the eighteenth century, touching Chris
tianity, was, Can it be made to square
with the human reason? OF the nine
teenth, Can it be made to square with
the results of scientific research? OF
the twentieth, What can it do? We
must learn to enforce not only love of
God, whom we cannot see, but love to
our neighbors, with whom we are living
in constant contact. Neither without
the other is Christianity whatever else
it may be. Everything that interests
his neighbors must interest him, If he
is a genuine follower of the Christ.
1t is the mission of the church-the
rural as we'll as the city-to evange-
lie the whole world, to train to the
highest degree of efficiency those
whom it evangelizes and to seek to
make the spirit of Jesus the absolute
rule in all human relations.
II is an admitted Tor fact that