Part 6

What do we find to be the result of the three years? They have been the three most prosperous years of the church's history. Two men have been added to the clerical force. The expenses of the church have been met, and the bills have been paid when they were due. The contributions for home and foreign missions have more than doubled. More members have been received than during any other similar period. There has been perfect harmony and the people have been glad and happy in their common work. Ten places of worship have been established in the country around where regular services are held. The people in these neighborhoods attend their own services and do not come into the village church as some of them formerly did. The present arrangement does not tend to build up a large central congregation, but has the opposite effect. Thirty former central members have become part of a newly formed church three miles away. There has been no great increase in the population, either of the village or of the country around. But the congregations and the Sunday-schools were never so large as they have been during this period. It has been found impossible to accommodate all those who wished to worship with the church, or properly to care for those attending the Sunday-school. A larger building became an actual necessity, and in the summer of 1913 an addition was made, increasing the seating capacity of the building by one third, and providing a number of rooms for Sunday-school and social purpose. Can we doubt that the blessing of God will attend any church that sees the vision, and with faith and courage and sacrifice gives itself to the work of making it a reality?

8. When all the ministers and all the churches catch the vision of the Larger Parish and address themselves to the work of making it a reality, the rural regions will be rehabilitated, religiously, morally, and socially, and a splendid impulse will be given to the work throughout the whole country. If some practical plan can be adopted by the village churches for extension work, the whole aspect of the country situation may be quickly changed. The people, both in the villages and in the open country, are more ready for some such movement than has been supposed. Would not the Larger Parish idea as set forth in this story furnish a good working plan for such a movement?

No man can have very much enthusiasm in a task that does not challenge all his powers and bring them into action--neither can a church. With the village churches it is a case of self-preservation as well as outreaching service. They must do this work or die. They will not long survive the spiritual declension of the country. The country and the village stand or fall together. Their fortunes are united. They must help each other up into a better life or they will sink into a like economic, social, and spiritual stagnation and death. The plan of the wider parish, or some better plan, if it is wisely and vigorously worked, will secure both to the village and the country communities their rightful heritage of spiritual and social strength and usefulness.

9. Nearly all the Christian denominations have their home missionary boards or societies whose functions it is to help sustain gospel work in needy places and to organize and cherish churches on the frontier and in destitute places. The frontier lines are not so extensive as they once were, but the desolate places are almost as numerous as ever, and they are in the very heart of our most highly developed civilization. In fact, they lie all about our churches, often almost within the sound of the church-bell. It is often too expensive to sustain a minister and maintain regular services in all these places and so they are left without gospel privileges. If they can be grouped about a village church as a center, and if the church can be the base of operations from which the work is carried on in all these outlying regions; if through the aid of the home missionary boards a sufficient clerical force can be maintained to carry on the wide work, will not such a course be a practical, a successful, and an economical method of accomplishing home mission work?

God is waiting to give the vision to those who are ready to receive it. The country in its great need and desolation is waiting for the help which the village churches can give to them. I believe the home missionary societies and boards are ready to coöperate in some such plan for the uplifting and the evangelization of the country districts. The village churches themselves are waiting for the wider work to quicken their waning life, and to kindle their dying enthusiasm. The world is waiting to see them move forward in a determined and consecrated effort to reduce the vision to reality. God is waiting to pour out his Spirit in abundant blessing upon the churches that have enough faith and courage to undertake the work.

I believe that the fulfilment of all this is not far in the future, and if this story of the Larger Parish shall contribute even in a small degree to this result, the teller will be amply repaid for his attempt to picture the new path along which God has led him.

"Move to the fore. God himself waits, and must wait, till thou come, Men are God's prophets though ages lie dumb. Halts the Christ-Kingdom, with conquest so near? Thou art the cause, then, thou man at the rear. Move to the fore."