Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printererrors have been changed, and they are indicated witha mouse-hoverand listed at theend of this book. All otherinconsistencies are as in the original.
A STUDY IN RELIGIOUS SOCIOLOGY
BY
WARREN H. WILSON
THE PILGRIM PRESS
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
Copyright, 1912,
By Luther H. Cary
THE PILGRIM PRESS
BOSTON
TO
MISS ANNA B. TAFT
WHO FOUND THE WAY OF
RURAL LEADERSHIP
IN SERVICE ON THE NEGLECTED BORDERS OF
New England Towns
The significance of the most significant things is rarely seized at themoment of their appearance. Years or generations afterwards hindsightdiscovers what foresight could not see.
It is possible, I fear it is even probable, that earnest and intelligentleaders of organized religious activity, like thousands of the rank andfile in parish work, will not immediately see the bearings and realizethe full importance of the ideas and the purposes that are clearly setforth in this new and original book by my friend and sometime student,Dr. Warren H. Wilson. That fact will in no wise prevent or even delaythe work which these ideas and purposes are mapping out and pushing torealization.
The Protestant churches have completed one full and rounded period oftheir existence. The age of theology in which they played a conspicuouspart has passed away, never to return. The world has entered into thefull swing of the age of science and practical achievement. What thework, the usefulness, and the destiny of the Protestant churches shallhenceforth be will depend entirely upon their own vision, their commonsense, and their adaptability to a new order of things. Embodying as[Pg viii]they do resources, organization, the devotion and the energy of earnestminds, they are in a position to achieve results of wellnighincalculable value if they apply themselves diligently and wisely to thetask of holding communities and individuals up to the high standard ofthat "Good Life" which the most gifted social philosopher of all agestold us, more than two thousand years ago, is the object for whichsocial activities and institutions exist.
In one vast field of our social territory the problem of maintaining thegood life has become peculiar in its conditions and difficult in theextreme. The rural community has suffered in nearly every imaginable wayfrom the rapid and rather crude development of our industrialcivilization. The emigration of strong, ambitious men to the towns, thesubstitution of alien labor for the young and sturdy members of thelarge American families of other days, the declining birth rate and thedisintegration of a hearty and cheerful neighborhood life, all haveworked together to create a problem of the rural neighborhood, thecountry school and the country church unique in its difficulties,sometimes in its discouragements.
To deal with this problem two things are undeniably necessary. Theremust be a thorough examination of it, a complete analysis and mastery ofits factors and conditions. The social survey