Excerpt from The Country Church and the Rural Problem: The Carew Lectures at Hartford Theological SeminaryThe country church faces a crisis. The agriculture of the nineteenth century was individualistic, extensive, even exploitative, and only toward the close of the period developed highly organized commercial aspects. During the present century American agriculture promises to be put upon an intensive and scientific basis, co-operation will begin to supersede individual bargaining, and the welfare of the rural community instead of the profit of the individual farmer will be more and more the point of departure in all discussions and movements for rural betterment.The church, too, as it served the farming classes has been individualistic in its appeal. Its work has been one of extension, it has marched to the frontier with the frontiersman. It has even been exploitative of denominational pride and power. Undeniably it has done a great work. It has saved rural life for moral and spiritual ends.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.