Chapter 13

Rev. C. O. Gill, who was captain of the Yale football team in 1890, has had an extended experience among farmers. He says, "The reason why farmers cannot co-operate is in the fact that they did not play when they were boys. They never learned team work. They cannot yield to one another, or surrender themselves to the common purpose." The writer, observing Mr. Gill coaching a university team, commented upon the good spirits with which a player yielded his place on the team just before the victory. Mr. Gill had removed him, as he explained to him, not because he played poorly, but because a new formation required a rearrangement of the team. In reply to comment upon the player's self-forgetfulness, Mr. Gill said, "Football is the greatest school of morals in the country. I learned more ethics from the coaches when I was an undergraduate in Yale, than from all other sources combined."

It is this high ethical value of recreation which causes the working man to defend his amateur baseball team, and makes it so hard to repress Sunday games. The working man admits the high value of the Sabbath, but he sets a value also upon recreation, and without analysis of the philosophy either of the Sabbath or of the play-ground, stoutly maintains the goodness of recreation and its necessity for those who have labored all the week. "I work six days in the week, and I must have some time for recreation," is the working man's answer to all Sunday reformers. Waiving for a moment the question of the Sabbath, the human process to which the working man testifies is exactly as he describes it. Organized labor and systematic industry will react on any population in the form of systematic recreation.

The Play-ground Movement, therefore, is extending itself throughout the country by the very influence of modern industry. Given intelligence to interpret it, and one understands at once the desire of philanthropic and public spirited men and women to provide "a playground beside every school building, open for all the people."

Dr. Luther H. Gulick, who was born of missionary parents, was trained in religious schools, graduated as a physician, employed for years in the Young Men's Christian Association, and then made Play-Ground Director in the New York Public Schools, has become legitimately the heir of the experiences of the modern social conscience. He has summed up the philosophy of working men, students, and of the people whose lives are systematized, in a sentence: "There is a higher morality in the reactions of play than in the experiences of labor."

The tradition of the church has been opposed to amusement and recreation. The church of our fathers recognized the moral possibilities of play by calling all play immoral. The early Quakers filled their records in the eighteenth century with denunciations of "frollicks." Consciously they denounced amusement, acting no doubt in a wise understanding of the rude, boisterous character of the pioneer's social gatherings. Only unconsciously did the Quakers cultivate the spirit of recreation in their social gatherings. It was permitted to have but few and repressed opportunities. The decadence of the Quaker church is probably due, in a considerable measure, to their stubborn unwillingness to see both sides of this question. They saw that recreation was immoral. They refused to see that its possible moral value was as great as its moral danger.

Extensive correspondence with working pastors, by means of a system of questions sent out from a New York office, has brought this result. In answer to the question, "What amusements of moral value are there in the community?" the answer, "Baseball, boating, tennis, golf, bicycling, etc." A smaller number of recreations was named in answer to the inquiry for immoral sports. The subsequent question, "What is your position before the community?" brought from the minister very often this answer: "I am known to be opposed to all sports." Few ministers realize the inconsistency of this position. They stand before the community as the professed advocates of public and private morality, and they stand also before the community as the professed and violent opponents, often, of the public sports which are known to the young men and workingmen generally as promoters of ethical culture and moral training. Is it any wonder that the churches, in these communities, are often deserted by the common people?

In Lewistown, Pa., the old Presbyterian Church there, seeing the congested character of the town population and the need of breathing-places for the young people and working people, looked about for a recreation field. The only available ground is the old cemetery, in which the earlier members of the congregation have buried their dead. This, the only open spot in the center of the town, it has been proposed to turn into a playground, the bodies of the dead to be disinterred and laid reverently away in a quieter place, and the ground newly consecrated to the needs of the living, and of the young. The action contemplated by this fine old church is emblematic of the modern spirit. Christianity is no longer a mere reverence for death and the other world. But it is an energetic service to the young, and the working people, in this present world. It is no longer a solemn reverence for the salvation of the individual soul in a heaven unseen, but it is a social service, no less serious, unto the living and unto the young and the employed.

Certain modern sports, such as baseball, are free from the corruption which has attached itself to horse-racing and pugilism. This corruption is not in racing a horse, or punching an opponent. It is in the dishonesty of the race, for horsemen believe that "there never was an honest horse-race," and the followers of the prize ring are constantly suspicious that the fight will be "fixed." The first question they ask after the decision of the referee is generally, "Was it a frame-up?" The moral power of baseball, tennis, football and the other most popular sports, is in the confidence that the game is fairly played. This fairness of the game is the widest extended school of ethical culture that the American and British population know. Honorable recreation trains in courage, manliness, co-operation, obedience, self-control, presence of mind, and in every other of the general social virtues. It makes men citizens and good soldiers when need comes. This was the meaning of the remark of the Duke of Wellington, when, after the conquest of Napoleon, he returned to view the playground at Eton, and said, "Here the Battle of Waterloo was won."

For the building up of a community, therefore, the promotion of recreation is an essential. Just as necessary as the providing of common schools for all the people, is the provision of public play-grounds for all the people. As many as are the school houses so many, generally speaking, should be the play-grounds accessible to all, under the care of trained and responsible leaders, in which, without too much government, the free movements of the young and the abounding self-expression of the great mass of the employed shall have opportunity to work out their own education through play, into public righteousness.

The training of citizens for days to come demands exactly the qualities which are imparted on the play-ground. Morality is not taught and ethical culture is not imparted by precept, though precept and exhortation have their due place in the analysis of moral and spiritual matters, for the thoughtful. But the great number of people are not ethically thoughtful, and in the acquirement of righteousness all people are unconscious. The desired action in moral growth is universally spontaneous. The most sober and intellectual of men must be caught off his guard and must be lured into voluntary actions before any moral habits can be formed in him. Mere analysis of truth or self-examination makes no man good. But men become good by doing things first, and thinking of them afterward. They can be just as good if they never think about them, though thinking about ethical matters renders a service to the community as a whole.

It should be the duty, therefore, of the churches, who are acknowledged before the whole community as repositories of the conscience of men, to promote public recreation. Where necessary the church should even provide a play-ground. In Galesburg, Ill., fifteen churches are co-operating, through their men's societies, in a central council of forty members. This Council is made up in the form of four Committees of ten. Each Committee considers one great interest of the community. One of these interests is recreation. It is the duty of this Committee in winter to provide musical and literary entertainment and lectures. In the summer this Committee has secured the use of the Knox College recreation field, and employing a trained man, has opened it throughout the summer as a play-ground for all the children of the city.

The use of recreation for the building up of a community seems to involve expensive apparatus and sometimes does so. Mrs. Russell Sage at Sag Harbor, Long Island, has expended many thousands of dollars in the experiment. Interested in the children, of whom there are about eight hundred in the town, through the experience of giving them a Christmas tree, she determined to devote to their use a piece of land on the borders of the village, formerly used as a fair ground. This work is to have local value for the children of this community, and has been used as a demonstration center of the efficiency of recreation as a moral discipline among the young.

But most communities have not so much money to spend. The proposal of a play-ground or of a gymnasium is itself sufficient to condemn the doctrine of play. "We cannot afford it," settles the whole question. In the country expensive apparatus is not necessary; nor do the farmer's son and daughter require in recreation so much physical exercise. The gymnasium is an artificial and expensive machinery for inducing sweat, but the farmer needs no such artificial machine. The problem is purely one of play, not of exercise. For this purpose a careful study of the community, and of its tendencies and inclinations, is necessary. The great essential of recreation in the country is the opportunity to meet and to talk. Therefore the social life of gatherings in the church, and in the schoolhouse, no matter what their program, provided it be innocent, is valuable. Farmers will attend an auction, and go a long way to a horse-race, or gather at a fair, without any intention of buying or selling. The fundamental service rendered by the county fair and the auction is an opportunity afforded to converse. This exercise of the tongue is far more important in rural recreation than the exercise of the biceps. But country people cannot talk without an occasion which unlocks their tongues. They must not be directly solicited to converse or they are silent. If the occasion is provided and is made to be sufficiently plausible its greatest success will be in conversation.

In almost every country community, therefore, there should be revival, in various forms, of the old "Bees," which had so much of a place in the former economy. If there is a widow who has no one to cut her wood, the men of the country church should assemble to do it. If there is a household whose bread winner and husbandman has died at the time of planting corn, let the men of the community gather at an appointed day and till the ground for the family, whose grief is greater at that moment than their need. Let the women of the community assemble at noon to provide an abundant repast. This was recently done by a countryside, at the instigation of the minister, and the effect of it was lasting in its values as well as intense in the joy of the day's work. It seems, in view of the need of recreation, that no other quality is so important in the country community as a lively leader. Resourceful, energetic and fertile men in the rural ministry can accomplish vastly more than conventional, orderly and proper men.

The church in which I began my ministry used to have a play every Christmas. We built out the pulpit platform with boards, we hung it around with curtains, giving dressing-room space, and we placed lanterns in front for foot-lights. The first play we gave made us anxious, for the neighborhood was an old Quaker settlement; but we found that the Quakers enjoyed the play immensely and were the best actors. We made it a genuine expression of the Christmas spirit. We abolished the old "speaking pieces." Our little stage offered the young people team work, instead of individual elocution. The rehearsals filled a whole month with happy and valuable meetings. Everybody co-operated in the labor necessary to prepare the decorations and to take them down, during Christmas week, and on the night of the play everybody was on hand, Catholic, Protestant and heathen.

The holidays of the passing year suggest the recreations of the country church. These should not necessarily be productive of sweat, but the country boy and girl do need the recreation of laughter and happy meeting and social liveliness. Farm work is lonely and monotonous. Such immorality as there is in the country has direct connection with the tedium and dullness of long hours out-doors, alone. The recreations of country life should be meetings for the celebration of great events of the year. Easter expresses ideas which are age-old among country people: it is both a pagan festival and a Christian anniversary. If Easter is developed in a celebration of song or procession, of sermon and of decoration, with full use of its symbolic value, it is sure to bring the whole countryside together, in an experience of the New Year rising from the grave of winter and of the divine Lord risen from the dead.

Most country communities have no such celebration. In very many the whole year passes without neighbors meeting for a common social experience. This is why people move to the city, because every city, great and small, has in the course of the year some events which bring all the people to the curbstone. Country life has few such times and therefore it is dull, because the richest experience of mankind is the experience of common social joy. The best recreation is acquaintance and conversation. The farmer's son spends many hours in silence. He wants someone to help him to talk, and to talk unto some purpose.

The Fourth of July is celebrated in Rock Creek, an Illinois community, by a "wild animal show." Instead of explosives, which are discouraged, the boys of the community bring together in small cages their animal pets. The boys are encouraged to make small carts for the transportation of their pets, and the crowning event of the day is the procession of these carts, in an open place, before the great dinner, at which the countryside sits down together.

Recreation in the country, above all, should revolve about something to eat. The farmer's business is to feed the world, and country people love, above all things, the social joy of eating. Farmers' wives are the best cooks and the country household perpetuates its culinary traditions. Especially does a permanent farm population enrich its household tradition with delicious recipes and beautiful customs of the table. Thanksgiving Day should be the great celebration of the round year in the country. What a comment upon the country community it is that so few communities in the country meet together, in response to the President's proclamation of thanksgiving, to express gratitude unto the bountiful Father of all.

The country church should minister to country people in some effective gathering of all the countryside. A most fruitful method now in use is a corn judging contest for the boys.

In the Middle West the Corn Clubs for boys have had an extraordinary value, and in the South, also, the Farmer's Co-operative Demonstration Work has made use of the boys in the country community for demonstrating progressive methods on the farm. Thanksgiving Day can be prepared for in the preceding spring, and the boys and girls who have managed a garden, or half acre, through the summer can make their showing at that time. Such a competitive showing in the country, in the production of the staple crop, is sure to bring together the whole countryside.

The local history of the country community is a fruitful source of recreation. Farmers look to the past, and even the new people in the country are keen to hear the story of the old settlers and of the early pioneers. Nothing is of greater value in developing and refreshing country life than to enrich it by celebrating its early history.

Recreation is essential to the moral life of any people. It is the constructive method of making individuals into good citizens. Especially valuable is it as a means of educating the young people and the working people of the community. The craving for this social training and ethical experience drives many out of the country community. Conversely, training in social morality is to be undertaken especially by the church, which possesses the conscience of the country community. This training is expressed in the one phrase; the promotion of recreation.

XIV

COMMON WORSHIP

The worship of God is an expression of the consciousness of kind. "This consciousness is a social and a socializing force, sometimes exceedingly delicate and subtle in its action; sometimes turbulent and all-powerful. Assuming endlessly varied modes of prejudice and of prepossession, of liking and disliking, it tends always to reconstruct and dominate every mode of association and every social grouping."[35] This description by Professor Giddings is so near to a description of worship, that it is startling.

Of all human acts of the conscientious man worship is the most highly symbolic. They who worship are alike, and in their likeness are unlike to others. It is an expression of their awareness of resemblance and of difference. The definitions of consciousness of kind, as a sociological process, go a long way to explain without further comment, both the strength and the weakness of the churches in America.

The churches have to struggle with a narrow and small social horizon. Few people are so conscious of their kinship with all others in their community that they desire those others to worship with them. The sense of unlikeness to others is, unfortunately, as strong in their feelings as the sense of likeness unto their own. In the American community with many newcomers, and some foreigners, this sense of unlikeness is natural. It is not to be wondered that men should think themselves more like unto their old neighbors than unto the new. It is not surprising that with new economic processes men should ignore their unity with those who co-operate with them in getting a living, and should be conscious of their unity with those whose living comes in the same form. As a result, we have working men's churches and "rich men's clubs," "college churches," "student pastors," churches which minister to old families, and new chapels built by tenant farmers. But these phases of worship are peculiar to the times of transition in which we live. The immaturity of our economic processes, and the greater immaturity of our economic knowledge, explain the failure of worshiping people to assemble by communities; but the process which assembles men of kindred mind to worship together now is capable of bringing men together in larger wholes.

The spirit of federation is in the air. The longing for religious unity is a response to the stimuli of common experience in the same locality. Men who meet throughout the week, if they worship at all, discover a desire to worship together. The coming of great occasions and the celebrations of anniversaries, train them in some common assemblies. I remember how the tidings of the death of President McKinley brought together all the people of the community in an act of worship. Their response to a profound sense of danger was a community response, and the church which was prompt to open its doors, found men of all faiths within.

At a recent meeting of the National Body of one of the greatest Protestant churches, proceedings were halted by the moderator, who read a telegram announcing the friendly action of another religious body. This action looked toward union of the two denominations. It was a response to overtures from the body there in session. Instantly the whole assembly sprang up, applauding and cheering, and led by a clear, musical voice, broke out in a hymn. That hymn is profoundly sociological in its language, and its use is increasing among Christian people. It expresses that worship which is a consciousness of kind. Its words are

Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love: The fellowship of kindred minds Is like to that above.

Before our Father's throne We pour our ardent prayers; Our fears, our hopes, our aims, are one, Our comforts and our cares.

We share our mutual woes, Our mutual burdens bear, And often for each other flows The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part, It gives us inward pain; But we shall still be joined in heart, And hope to meet again.

It would be hard to find a member of a Protestant church in America, among the older denominations, who does not know these words, and is not accustomed to use them in response to the stimuli of kinship with other Protestant Christians.

The consciousness of kind is an awareness of differences and resemblances. It is a finding of one's self among those to whom one is like, and an aversion to those unto whom one is not like. Worship is an expression of this common likeness. It is an enjoyment of fellowship.

The experience of worship is impossible in an atmosphere of difference. This is a reason for the cleavage of denominations, and the splitting of congregations. Without this separating, men could not enjoy the uniting, and without the aversion, men could not taste the sweets of fellowship.

This brings us very near to the sacred experiences in which men find God. A very early chapter in the Bible describes God as the "Friend" of a man. In the succeeding pages he becomes the King, the Priest, the Prophet, and the Father of men. In every one of them the mind of the worshiper has expressed a profound sense, that God is found by the soul in society. Herbert Spencer has insisted that all religion is ancestor worship, that is, it grows out of the family group.

Simmel teaches that religion is the resultant of the reactions of the individual with his group fellows, and with the group as a whole. Christian folk are accustomed to express this by calling one another "brothers" and "sisters," meaning clearly that religion is a social experience.

This is not the place for extended biblical interpretation, but I am convinced that the whole course of scripture will testify to this, that in the peaceful, continuing, social unities men have found God, and in the differences, in their group conflicts, in their wars, and in the oppositions to their enemies, there has been found no religious experience. That is, such conflict has intensified unity, and the resulting unity has been ever richer in religion: but the thoughts for God have come forth clothed always in terms and titles of fellowship, unity and kinship.