Part 1

Chapter 13,729 wordsPublic domain

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THE MAKING OF A COUNTRY PARISH

* * * * *

LIBRARY OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS

_Volumes Issued_

The Church a Community Force. _By Worth M. Tippy_

The Church at the Center. _By Warren H. Wilson_

The Making of a Country Parish. _By Harlow S. Mills_

_Cloth, 50 Cents, Prepaid_

ADDITIONAL VOLUMES TO BE ISSUED

* * * * *

THE MAKING OF A COUNTRY PARISH

A STORY

HARLOW S. MILLS

New York Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada 1914

TO THE REV. AND MRS. F. A. NOBLE, D.D., WHO MADE THE SUMMER OF NINETEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN MEMORABLE IN THE LARGER BENZONIA PARISH BY THEIR PRESENCE, AND BY THEIR KINDLY AND HELPFUL INTEREST IN ITS WORK, AND TO WHOM THIS STORY OWES ITS SUGGESTION AND INSPIRATION, IT IS MOST GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

FOREWORD BY NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS ix

INTRODUCTION xiii

KEY TO MAP xvii

DESCRIPTION OF THE MAP xviii

I THE HISTORICAL SETTING OF THE STORY 1

II SOME CONVICTIONS OUT OF WHICH THE VISION CAME 12

III HOW THE VISION CAME 25

IV HOW THE VISION BECAME A REALITY 36

V THE METHODS OF THE LARGER PARISH 59

VI THINGS YET TO BE DONE 97

VII SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS 113

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

FROM BEULAH TO BENZONIA Frontispiece

MAP SHOWING THE LARGER PARISH xvi

CRYSTAL LAKE AND BEULAH FROM BENZONIA 10

THE PLATT LAKE CHAPEL 72

THE BENZONIA CHURCH 104

FOREWORD

For many years lovers of the republic have been warning our people as to the perils of modern city life. In 1800 one person out of thirteen lived in the city; to-day nearly every other citizen lives in a large town, or a great city. The city is the home of wealth, commerce, and finance; the home of music, art, and eloquence. Once each year all the great leaders come for a stay, long or short, to the metropolis. The birds leave the desert to seek the oasis, with its palm trees and springs of water. Young men, for two generations, have been deserting the farm and the village, to make their home in the great city. Many unexpected perils have sprung up from this massing of population. Among these dangers are the tenements, saloon, gambling houses, dens of vice, the tendency to anarchy, incident to the contrast between the palaces on the avenues and the rookeries on the Bowery. Insane people, defective children, men and women wrecked through drink and drugs, are some of the incidental results of congested populations. Innumerable addresses have been given upon the perils of the city life, and innumerable pamphlets and books have been published filled with warnings and black with alarm. The inevitable result is that the attention of the people has been focalized upon the manufacturing towns and the large cities.

Now comes the Rev. Harlow S. Mills, with his study of the rural population. With the wisdom made possible by twenty years of first-hand knowledge he sets forth the influence of the country upon the large town and city. He tells us that the country has furnished the leaders for the people. It is in the country that the boy has his opportunity of brooding and reading and reflecting, while in solitude he develops his own gift and grows great. The Church has learned to depend upon the country for its theological students, as well as for its best students of law and medicine. But of late the country church has suffered grievously through the pull of the city upon its best young men and women. The inevitable result has been that as the city church has waxed the country church has waned in wealth, numbers, and influence. Many things have occurred during the past twenty years that are calculated to stir the note of fear, lest the life and institutions of the republic, rooted in the country, should slowly starve. One of the problems of the hour has been the rejuvenation of the country Sunday-school and the country church.

Leaders of the past generation have struggled often in vain with this problem. Twenty years ago, the Rev. Harlow S. Mills, a friend of my boyhood, took a country church in northwestern Michigan, and started in to develop the same community spirit among the people who lived in widely separated school districts that the student finds developed in the wards of a great city. The story of these twenty years is full of fascination to all lovers of their fellow men and of the Christian Church. Mr. Mills has made some important discoveries and established certain mother principles that should be of invaluable service to the one half of our people living in small towns and rural districts. I believe this author and lover of his fellows has grown the good seed that ultimately will sow the continent with bread.

NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS.

INTRODUCTION

The rapid growth of our cities and towns during the last quarter of a century has brought us face to face with a serious problem. The religious and social conditions that have arisen give occasion for grave apprehensions, and have been subjects of careful thought. The City Problem has been widely discussed. Much thought and effort have been expended in its solution, and, while progress has been made and the outlook is hopeful, the end is not yet. Within recent years another problem has arisen which is scarcely less serious than that which the city presents, and that is the Country Problem. There are two reasons why this has not attracted special attention until quite lately. First, the city problem has been so serious and so acute that it has occupied the public mind to the exclusion of conditions in the country. And, in the second place, those conditions have increased in seriousness so rapidly in recent years and their demand for attention and careful consideration has become so insistent and imperious that it can no longer be disregarded. No thoughtful person can now blink the fact that there is a country problem, that it is equal in seriousness to the city problem, and that the two are so intimately related that neither of them can be solved by itself alone. They stand or fall together.

I have no theory to present, nor any philosophy to exploit. I have no patent way of solving either the city or the country problem. I have only a story to tell of some things that have been done that may point the way toward a solution of the country problem. It is the simple account of an experiment in the work of religious and social welfare that promises to be successful. The parish that is spoken of may be regarded as an experiment station, and this story is only the account of the working out of certain methods. It will be enough if the story shall prove to be some small contribution to the solution of the important and difficult country problem.

One of the greatest difficulties I had in writing this story was with myself. Some of the experiences were so purely personal that I hesitated to speak of them and I shrank from the so frequent use of the personal pronouns. In the first draft of the story I resorted to all manner of circumlocution to avoid their use, but I found it difficult to adopt any consistent form and the result was to weaken the impression. So, acting on the advice of able and judicious critics, I concluded to tell the story in the simplest and most direct way.

H. S. MILLS.

BENZONIA, MICHIGAN,

_August 15, 1914_.

KEY TO MAP

1. Benzonia Village, Benzonia Township. Church Organization, Church Building. Morning Service every Sunday. Sunday School, Christian Endeavor Society, Woman's Missionary Society, Weekly Prayer Meeting, Ladies' Aid Society.

2. Beulah Village, Benzonia Township. Chapel. Evening Service every Sunday, Sunday School, Ladies' Aid Society.

3. Eden, Benzonia Township. Church Organization, Schoolhouse (Chapel, 1914). Evening Service every Sunday, Sunday School, Christian Endeavor Society, Weekly Prayer Meeting, Neighborhood Club, Ladies' Social Circle.

4. Champion Hill, Homestead Township. Church Organization, Chapel. Morning Service every Sunday, Christian Endeavor Society.

5. Platt Lake, Benzonia Township. Chapel. Afternoon Service on alternate Sundays. Ladies' Aid Society.

6. North Crystal, Benzonia Township. Private Home (Chapel, 1914). Afternoon Service on alternate Sundays, Sunday School, Ladies' Aid Society.

7. Grace, Gilmore Township. Church Organization, Chapel. Morning Service every Sunday, Sunday School, Neighborhood Club, Ladies' Aid Society.

8. Demerley, Joyfield Township. Schoolhouse. Afternoon Service on alternate Sundays, Sunday School.

9. South Chapel, Benzonia Township. Chapel. Evening Service on alternate Sundays, Sunday School.

10. East Joyfield, Joyfield Township. Chapel. Evening Service on alternate Sundays, Sunday School.

11. Liberty Union, Benzonia Township. Schoolhouse. Afternoon Service on alternate Sundays, Neighborhood Club.

12. South Elberta, Gilmore Township. Schoolhouse. Sunday School.

DESCRIPTION OF THE MAP

In order that the term, "The Larger Parish," the name by which the work of this story has come to be familiarly known, may be understood, some description of its geography and topography as represented on the accompanying map, may be necessary.

The Larger Benzonia Parish is situated in Benzie County, Michigan, eight miles from Lake Michigan and at the east end of Crystal Lake, one of the most beautiful small lakes in the state. Benzonia-Beulah, the twin villages which are at the center of the Larger Parish, are on the Ann Arbor Railroad, which extends diagonally through the state from Toledo, Ohio, to Frankfort on Lake Michigan. The Larger Parish includes Benzonia Township and portions of Lake, Homestead, Joyfield, Gilmore, and Crystal Lake Townships. It divides itself into three sub-parishes: the North Parish, with two churches, Champion Hill and Eden, and two out-stations, North Crystal and Platt Lake; the South Parish, with one church, Grace, and five out-stations, South Chapel, Demerley, East Joyfield, Liberty Union, and South Elberta; while between these is the Central Parish, with Benzonia on the hilltop and Beulah in the valley, half a mile distant.

The map represents the western half of Benzie County, and the various churches, chapels, and other out-stations are designated.

THE HISTORICAL SETTING OF THE STORY

The story of New England with the Pilgrims left out could be neither understood nor appreciated. We must know something about those sturdy, conscientious men and women who became exiles and crossed the stormy Atlantic that they might have "freedom to worship God." We must understand something about the barren and the wintry coast that received them, something of their struggles and sufferings, their aims and aspirations, if we would know the history of that civilization that they founded, or get a true conception of the experiment in democracy that they so successfully wrought out.

The story that is about to be told had its Pilgrims. To leave them out would be to spoil the story. It cannot be understood without knowing something of their heroic spirit, their sincere devotion, and the manner in which they permanently impressed their ideas and their personality upon the community which they founded and the institutions which they planted. Some account of its historical setting will be necessary in order to make this story of country evangelization complete.

The half century between 1825 and 1875 witnessed the most remarkable educational movement that our country has ever seen. It was the era of college planting. During that period a line of Christian colleges was projected from New York to California, many of which have been developed and stand to-day as monuments to the zeal and foresight of that remarkable generation of nation builders. The value of their work, and its influence for good upon the people and the institutions of the most populous, the wealthiest, and the most influential section of our country cannot be estimated.

In 1858 a company of people from northern Ohio, who had lighted their torch of religious and educational enthusiasm at the flame of Oberlin, came into the vast wilderness of northern Michigan with the purpose of planting there Christian institutions. They were high-minded, sturdy people, with strong religious convictions. The Pilgrims did not bring to the New England coast a truer motive or a purer purpose. They were willing to put into the enterprise their lives and their fortunes. They stamped the new community that they founded with the impress of their ideals, and that stamp has persisted.

These modern Pilgrims repeated with some modification the experiences of their New England prototypes. After a long and stormy voyage on the Great Lakes they landed in the late autumn on an inhospitable coast, built them some rough shanties that their descendants would not consider worthy to shelter their cattle, and there they passed a severe winter. They explored the northwestern Michigan woods, and finally, with a strange indifference to the importance of a railway to the development of a town, they lighted upon a level plateau on the top of a high hill, two hundred feet above the placid waters of beautiful Lake Crystal, and eight miles from Lake Michigan, and there they pitched their tents. Like Abraham, their first work after entering the Promised Land was to build an altar to Jehovah, and like him and their New England ancestors, they built it on the highest elevation that they could find. One of the first things they did was to select a site for a church and for a school, and, standing under the tall maples and beeches, with hymn and prayer, to dedicate that high hilltop to the cause of Christian education.

The church that they planted, the first in all the Grand Traverse region, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its organization in 1910. It has now a membership of about three hundred, and is the center of the religious and social life, not only of the immediate community but also of the territory known as "The Larger Parish," twelve miles long and ten miles wide. It has been the mother of churches, and now stands encircled by a number of younger organizations that are growing strong and sturdy under its cherishing influence.

Benzonia, the village that they founded, never became the populous center that they hoped it would be. There are now but about four hundred people living on the hilltop, and nearly as many more in the village of Beulah, which, at the bottom of the hill nestles around the head of the Lake, half a mile away. The two villages of Benzonia and Beulah form one corporation, and contain together about seven hundred inhabitants. The school which they established is still doing business, though not exactly in the way that they anticipated. They thought to repeat the history of Oberlin by planting in the woods of northern Michigan an institution of learning such as the fathers planted in northern Ohio. But the conditions were very dissimilar. Oberlin was in the zone of quick settlement. Cities and towns soon sprang up all about it, and it became in a few years the center of a large population. But the northern Michigan region developed very slowly and it was a long time before there were enough people to maintain a college or to justify its presence. But from the first there was in operation a school of high order, and it performed a splendid service in those early years, doing the educational work for all that region, and supplying teachers for the public schools throughout a wide territory. It is now conducted as an Academy and is doing an excellent work, sending forth each year large classes of young people well prepared to enter any college or university in the country. The Academy has been maintained very largely by the gifts and sacrifices of the people of the community, and is an important factor of the work that is being wrought out in "The Larger Parish."

The people of this community are unusually homogeneous. There are no Roman Catholics, few foreigners, and no colored people. They are hardworking and industrious, none of them possessing large wealth, and none of them being very poor. All are compelled to toil for their daily bread. There, if anywhere, it is possible to live "the simple life," and in such healthful conditions the community life has developed. Though the presence of the Academy has been a means of culture and the center and inspirations of literary life, it is by no means true that all the people in the wide parish are well educated. A few miles from the village primitive and pioneer conditions are found, and there is no lack of genuine missionary ground.

The social life of this community is very satisfactory. There are no classes or cliques. The people mingle together freely on a common basis, and exemplify to an unusual degree the principle of brotherhood. There has never been a saloon in the community, and the people are for the most part steady-going and law-abiding. They are loyal to their home institutions, crowding the church on Sunday and taking a lively interest in all things that pertain to the welfare of the village and the surrounding country. They are dependent upon themselves for literary and musical entertainments--no shows or moving picture combinations ever come that way. But a good lecture course is maintained, and there are frequent musical and literary entertainments by the Academy and high school and by the people of the town; so there is no lack of the means of recreation, and that of a high order and of a helpful character.

At the west end of Crystal Lake, eight miles distant, on a beautiful tract of land with frontage on Lake Michigan, as well as on Crystal Lake, are the grounds of the Frankfort Congregational Summer Assembly. The location is superb, and it is rapidly becoming a favorite summer resort, attracting people even from New England and from the Pacific coast. The relation between Benzonia and the summer assembly is very close. It is easily accessible by frequent boats. Every year they have "Benzonia Day," when the Assembly adjourns to the beautiful campus on the hilltop, enjoying a dinner together under the trees and a well-arranged program of speeches and music. The residents of the surrounding country come in crowds to these outdoor festivals and they are eagerly anticipated by all. They afford a fine opportunity for the people of the vicinage to meet in friendly intercourse those who come from distant parts of the country to enjoy the cool breezes and the woods and lakes of the northern Michigan regions, and they are appreciated by all. Sometimes the Assembly is the host, and the people of Benzonia are the guests. During the summer the leading ministers of the country are frequently in the Benzonia pulpit, and so the people, though living quite remote from the great centers, and not given to much travel, have the privilege of hearing the most noted speakers, and thus come in touch with the good things that are being said and done in the wider world.

The Academy and summer Assembly are closely related to the work of the Larger Benzonia Parish. While this work has not been dependent upon them, their presence and influence have been a great stimulus and encouragement, and they have added strength and stability to the movement.

Thus briefly is sketched the setting of the story that will be told in the succeeding chapters.

SOME CONVICTIONS OUT OF WHICH THE VISION CAME

A conviction is a great thing. It is the egg out of which all great enterprises are hatched. Almost everything that is worth while was once wrapped up in a conviction. Abraham had a conviction that he ought to obey God's leading. He took his journey to the "land that he knew not of," and we have as the result the Hebrew race, and all that has come out of it for the world.

The vision of which I am telling the story was at first only a conviction. There were a few things of which I had become certain. Just how the conviction seized me I hardly know, but I like to think that it came from the same source from which Abraham's conviction came, and that thought has made me confident in following this guiding gleam.

1. I became convinced that the real object of the Church is to _serve_ the people, and that its claim for support should rest upon the same ground upon which every other institution bases its claim for support--that it gives value received. That has not always been the idea of church people. They have considered the Church as a divine institution, and that because of its divine origin and sacred character it can properly demand respect and support. There was a time in the not very distant past when the ministers of the Church, as its representatives, might demand reverence and respect because of the position they occupied. There was much of reverence and regard for "the cloth." But those days are past. Now the Church is valued only for what it does. If it does nothing, it need no longer look for respectful recognition. If it makes no contribution to the community whose value can be seen and appreciated, it cannot expect support or favorable regard. People do not care very much for clerical dignity in these days. They are not asking what place a man occupies, or what kind of clothes he wears, but what he does for the community. Is he rendering valuable service? They are quite ready to pay for service that is of real worth, but for dignity and traditionary sanctity they have slight regard.