Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/852

832, to include all the six ends of social welfare, and all institutions which help to achieve these ends, assigning to each one its part in producing rural unity and harmony.

Such a method, however, must have some organization back of it to put it into execution. This initiative must come from within the community and not from without. Now the question is: Which one of the rural institutions is best fitted to conceive and initiate a rational program of reform?

"The true integrating force in society is a spiritual force," says Benjamin Kidd. "It is," says Washington Gladden, "the spirit of Jesus Christ in the hearts of men. The precise business of the church is to fill the world with the spirit of unity and brotherhood; to arrest and countervail the divisive and repulsive forces; to promote the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace; to preach and realize here upon earth a kingdom of heaven, a kingdom of peace and good-will." "The very function of the church," says Graham Taylor, "is to build up the community out of itself, and not to build up itself out of the community." "To unify all forces which make for righteousness and inspire them to realize the highest ideals attainable is the formative function of the church in a community." The church is so situated that it touches both types of rural life, the farming district and the village. It is a permanent organization in society. Cross-bearing is the end of its being and the source of its life. Its chief function, therefore, is to take up the burden of the rural community and bear it in a spirit of love and consecration to generate enthusiastic public spirit; and to conceive and initiate a rational program of reform.

No other rural institutions are situated to undertake this work. They lack either permanence, the spirit of sacrifice, the enkindling personality of a great founder, the breadth of scope, the opportune site, or the enthusiasm and consecration for service.

But has the church a vision of its social functions that it may take the initiative in this movement? It is true that the church at present is far from being a center of rural organization and inspiration. It has no scientific knowledge of its true function. Asleep in its rustic bower, it has not yet awakened to the change