Six Thousand Country Churches Part 2

In the Eighteen Counties of Southeastern Ohio some of the older and stronger denominations are well represented, as Table C shows. (See page 39.) No less than 526, or more than one-third, of the total number of churches are Methodist Episcopal. Nearly one-tenth are United Brethren in Christ, another tenth Baptist, one-fifteenth Christian, and one-fifteenth Presbyterian; while other powerful denominations are also present. It is evident that the failure of the churches in this area cannot be laid to the weakness or poverty of the denominations represented, for they are for the most part neither weak nor poor. Ohio, moreover, is a wealthy State, and its churches make large contributions for church work and church extension both in America and abroad.

It has been too commonly held in the past that missionary effort should consist largely in organizing and building churches. We do not believe that proposition is sound. In rural Ohio the worst moral and religious conditions are found where there are the largest number of churches in proportion to the number of inhabitants.

In 39 counties out of a total of 88 in the State, there is one country church for each 275 people or less. (See Map 5 and Table A, column 5.) Of these 39 counties, 17 are among the Eighteen Counties under our special consideration. Outside these Eighteen Counties and the counties contiguous to them, no county has an average of less than 228 persons to a church, but it appears that Was.h.i.+ngton has one church for 226 persons, Monroe one for 214, Pike one for 211, Gallia one for 197, Morgan one for 194, Jackson one for 193, while Vinton has one for 182, and Meigs one church for 178.

In the rural sections of these Eighteen Counties there are 1,542 churches and 248 towns.h.i.+ps, or more than 6 churches to a towns.h.i.+p.

While the fact that this region is more difficult to travel, because more hilly, than many other parts of the State might const.i.tute a reason for having many churches, it certainly cannot be held that the bad moral and religious conditions which exist are due to lack of a sufficient number of them. Nor is support here to be found for the contention sometimes made that religious work thrives best under compet.i.tion.

The larger the number of churches in proportion to the population, the more difficult it obviously becomes to secure, support, and retain resident pastors. In proportion to the number of churches, the Eighteen Counties have a comparatively small number of ministers. (See Map 6 and Table A, column 6.) In the State as a whole, about one-third, or 34 per cent, of the churches have resident ministers. In only three counties outside the Eighteen is it true that less than one-fourth of the churches have them. These are Delaware, Coshocton, and Pickaway, and the latter is one of the bordering counties. But in 13 of the Eighteen Counties less than one-fourth of the churches have resident ministers. It will be noted that less than one-fifth of the churches in Scioto, Pike, Lawrence, and Meigs Counties have resident ministers, one-sixth in Morgan County, and less than one-sixth in Jackson, Hocking, and Gallia.

In the Eighteen Counties the number of resident ministers in proportion to the population, as well as in proportion to the number of churches, is small. (See Map 7 and Table A, column 7.) There are 24 counties in Ohio in which there are more than 1,000 persons for each resident minister, of which 13 are among the Eighteen Counties under consideration, and three among the bordering counties. n.o.ble County has a resident minister to every 1,240 persons, Gallia to every 1,396, Lawrence to every 1,450, Pickaway to every 1,458, while Hocking has only one to 1,693, or nearly 1,700 persons. Here, as in most rural sections, an absentee ministry is necessarily ineffective. (See pages 50-51.)

The foregoing facts afford convincing evidence that the church in this region is rendering poor service--how poor the reader may judge from the following description of the religious and ecclesiastical conditions found by Mr. Gill in his personal investigation on the ground.

For the most part the farm people of these Eighteen Counties are very religious. This is attested not merely by the large number of churches, but also by the frequency of well-attended revival services, held in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. (In Pike County, for example, no less than 1,500 revival services were held in thirty years, or an average of 50 each year.) Yet a normal, wholesome religion, bearing as its fruit better living and all-round human development, and cherished and propagated by sane and sober-minded people, is rarely known. The main function of a church, according to the popular conception, is to hold these protracted meetings, to stir up religious emotion, and, under its influence, to bring to pa.s.s certain psychological experiences. The idea seems to be dominant in nearly all the denominations and churches that the presence of the Deity is made known mainly, if not solely, through states of intense emotion which may be stimulated in religious a.s.semblies. Such emotion is held to be not only a manifestation of the Deity's presence, but also a proof of His existence. No man is held to be religious or saved from evil destiny unless he has had such experience. It becomes, therefore, the business of the preacher of the church to create conditions favorable to the experiencing of these emotions.

Officials of denominations to which more than two-thirds of the churches belong encourage or permit the promotion of a religion of the excessively emotional type, which encourages rolling upon the floor by men, women, and children, and going into trances, while some things which have happened in the regular services of a church in one of the largest denominations cannot properly be described in print. The leaders of a religious cult commonly called Holy Rollers seem to be most efficient in this direction.

The character of their services and activities produce the results desired, according to the traditions accepted and proclaimed for generations by ignorant preachers to a nonprogressive people.

A Holy Roller movement was started in Pike County in the year 1902. It has steadily been gaining ground ever since, and has never been more flouris.h.i.+ng than now. It is the livest sect in this and neighboring counties. Its meetings are large and full of enthusiasm. Except the churches of this cult, very few are now left in the western half of Pike County which show any activity whatever. In one district of 150 square miles (in which there are 1,200 children enrolled in the schools and in all 1,600 young people from the ages of six to twenty) no churches were holding services in 1917 except those of the Holy Rollers.

The seasons of protracted Holy Roller meetings often last for several weeks. Frequently they begin each day at 10.00 A. M. and continue until 2.00 A. M. the next day, with intermissions for meals. These meetings are characterized by much singing, with music well adapted to rythmic motions of the body, by dancing and clapping the hands, sometimes by shouting and joyous screaming, rolling upon the floor, tumbling together of men and women in heaps, trances, while at least one of their preachers has exercised hypnotic power over some of his followers and has put them through stunts in no way differing from those of the professional hypnotist showman who, in times past, for the price of admission, has amused and astonished his audience with exhibitions of his skill.

In one village where Mr. Gill attended a church belonging to this movement, it was the only religious organization holding services or showing any signs of life. Although at this service the building was full to its capacity, as is usual with meetings of this kind, the church not only had no Sunday school, but its leaders kept the children away from one which a missionary of the American Sunday School Union was trying to start in the neighborhood. Three-fourths of the parents of the fifty pupils in the local school were adherents of this cult, yet its leaders opposed having better day schools. The school princ.i.p.al, under the direction of the County School Superintendent, tried to hold literary meetings for intellectual and social improvement, but under the influence of the Holy Roller leaders, the parents refused to let their children attend, and the enterprise was defeated. Apparently no meeting for any purpose is to be tolerated except the Holy Roller meetings themselves. These theoretically and in fact take the place of all other gatherings.

The Holy Roller church in this community, as elsewhere, in its total influence promotes immorality. It has a tendency to break up families and destroy the peace and harmony of the neighborhood. In the judgment of the more sober-minded people, the Holy Roller movement spoils the life of the community wherever it goes.

Although the Holy Roller cult apparently was not started in this region until a few years ago, it would seem that the religious activities of the older denominational churches were but a good preparation for it. In fact, good soil is found for sprouting the seed of Holy Rollerism in many sections of the State. The difference in religious beliefs and ideals between the Holy Rollers and the preachers of other denominations in the Eighteen Counties too often is not easily detected. Denominations to which at least two-thirds of the churches belong employ many men and women as preachers who are extremely ignorant.

In one of its districts, nearly half of the twenty or thirty ministers of the largest denomination in the State did not have a common school education. It is usual to find ministers intellectually inferior to a number of families whom they are supposed to lead and teach. In some districts a considerable proportion of the preachers have had no more than three or four grades of common school instruction. Some cannot write their own names correctly. Accordingly religious education is neglected. The people apparently have been untouched by the general advance in religious knowledge during the past century.

Many intelligent people in the Eighteen Counties deplore these conditions and would be glad to have churches of a different type. But it is also very common to find among the more prosperous, especially in the fertile river valleys, a spirit of utter indifference towards religion, and often of gross materialism. Under such circ.u.mstances it is not surprising to find that in several sections much hostility to inst.i.tutional religion exists. It is given expression by rural hoodlums who cut to pieces harnesses and slash tires belonging to ministers or laymen who attend religious gatherings, while in some communities stones are thrown through the windows of buildings where public wors.h.i.+p is being held.

While it is true that out of the poorest and most unfortunate districts bright boys and girls frequently emerge, escape their surroundings, and become good citizens, it is none the less true that a large proportion of those who remain have no reasonable chance for wholesome development.

The bad influence of the Eighteen Counties extends far beyond their borders. Out of them many farm laborers have gone to communities to the north and northwest, often with deplorable results to the social, religious, and moral conditions of the communities where they are employed. (See Table B.) It is calculated that no less than 61,000 persons emigrated in the ten-year period from 1900 to 1910 from the strictly rural districts of _sixteen_ of the Eighteen Counties.

In Madison, a fertile county near the center of the State, in an area sixteen miles long and from seven to eleven miles wide, there are three closed and no active churches. One of the causes of this condition is the fact that the farm laborers imported by the owners of large tracts of lands were never made familiar, before they came, with a normal type of religion. These men come from the Eighteen Counties or from sections across the Ohio River where the conditions are very much the same. In parts of several other counties the situation brought about by similar immigration is extremely bad.

The Eighteen Counties demand missionary activity on the part of the church as a whole, not only for the sake of the unfortunate people who live in them, but also for the sake of the other regions whose welfare is threatened by the transfer of low standards of all kinds, which, like a forest fire, are creeping away from the region where they originated.

Among the large number of intelligent persons who know and deplore the situation in typical communities of southeastern Ohio, very few seem to cherish hope of improvement. Such pessimism appears to be unjustified.

Good work is now being done by missionaries of the American Sunday School Union. What is more important, there is much promise that the trouble can be reached and cured by the modern country church movement, which is already making real progress in Ohio. As a result of this movement, for example, the Board of Home Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church has, for the first time, appropriated missionary funds to be used in this section, while one of the District Superintendents of the same denomination is carrying out a radically changed program for the churches under his supervision.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP A WHERE CONDITIONS DEMAND MISSIONARY AID]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 1 HIGH DEATH RATES FROM TUBERCULOSIS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 2 HIGH RATES OF ILLEGITIMACY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 3 WHERE ILLITERACY ABOUNDS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 4 DISTRIBUTION OF FOREIGN BORN WHITES]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 5 EXCESSIVE OVER-CHURCHING]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 6 CHURCHES MANY BUT MINISTERS FEW]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 7 NUMBER OF PERSONS TO A RESIDENT MINISTER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 8 VALUE OF FARM PROPERTY IN THE YEAR 1910]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 9 INCREASE IN VALUE OF FARM PROPERTY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP 10 RICH LAND AND POOR LAND]

TABLE A

SHOWING THAT IN A GROUP OF 18 COUNTIES IN SOUTHEASTERN OHIO THERE IS AN EXCESSIVE AMOUNT OF PREVENTABLE DISEASE AND ILLITERACY, AN EXCESSIVE NUMBER OF ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS, EXCESSIVE OVERCHURCHING, A VERY SMALL NUMBER OF RESIDENT MINISTERS IN PROPORTION TO THE NUMBER OF CHURCHES AND NUMBER OF PEOPLE, THAT AS COMPARED WITH OTHER SECTIONS THE TOTAL VALUE OF FARM PROPERTY IS SMALL AND THE INCREASE IN VALUE SLIGHT

Key: 1 _Average annual rate of deaths from tuberculosis of the lungs per 100,000 persons, 1909, 1910, 1911_ 2 _Average annual rate per 100,000 population of illegitimate births for 1909, 1910_ 3 _Per cent of illiterate males of voting age, 1910_ 4 _Per cent of total population who were foreign born white, 1910_ 5 _Number of persons to a church_ 6 _Per cent of churches which have resident ministers_ 7 _Number of persons to each resident minister_ 8 _Number of millions of dollars at which farm property is valued_ 9 _Per cent increase in value of farm property 1900-1910_

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 For State, 88 counties 125 43.9 4.2 12.5 279 34 825 59 Adams 147 6.9 0.5 266 1031 10 16 Athens 155 65 7.4 5.3 229 21 1086 10 16 Brown 193 4.3 1.9 1129 15 Clermont 164 249 14 Gallia 184 76 8.1 1.2 197 14 1396 7 13 Highland 145 252 Hocking 78 8.6 3.5 235 14 1693 6 Jackson 147 123 9.5 2 193 16 1222 5 Lawrence 172 113 11.6 1.8 267 18 1450 5 19 Meigs 158 178 18 1010 8 Monroe 78 5.4 2.4 214 24 10 19 Morgan 50 194 17 1150 9 25 n.o.ble 67 4.5 3.2 248 20 1240 11 Pike 216 89 10.7 1.4 211 18 1209 6 Ross 175 87 7.4 2.2 252 Scioto 169 73 7.7 3 233 19 1211 8 Vinton 49 8.4 .8 182 22 4 12 Was.h.i.+ngton 58 4.5 2.5 226 21 1087 14 25 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Average for 18 counties 2.3 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Belmont 55 7.1 15.1 1107 Clinton Fairfield 222 Fayette 55 6.2 .7 257 1234 Guernsey 55 7.8 9.2 269 13 Hamilton 217 66 14.3 Muskingum 48 224 Perry 4.6 7.3 9 Pickaway 130 61 5.7 1.8 22 1458 Warren 271

TABLE B

SHOWING CALCULATED NUMBER OF PERSONS WHO MIGRATED FROM THE RURAL DISTRICTS OF SIXTEEN COUNTIES IN SOUTHEASTERN OHIO 1900-1910

Key: 1 _Population of strictly rural towns.h.i.+ps, 1910_ 2 _Excess of birth rate over death rate_ 3 _Population of strictly rural towns.h.i.+ps, 1900_ 4 _Calculated total population in 1910 had there been no migration_ 5 _Calculated no. persons who migrated 1900-1910_

1 2 3 4 5 Total 61,418 Adams 24,775 12.15 26,328 29,432 4,677 Brown 24,832 4.93 28,237 30,241 5,409 Clermont 29,551 3.81 31,610 33,377 3,826 Gallia 19,546 2.73 20,973 21,527 1,981 Highland 17,382 4.22 19,504 20,283 2,901 Hocking 16,934 12.72 19,183 21,380 4,446 Jackson 10,996 12.47 12,009 13,444 2,448 Lawrence 23,202 14.83 24,644 28,192 4,990 Meigs 16,162 1.96 18,961 19,306 3,144 Monroe 19,940 13.73 23,373 26,347 6,407 Morgan 16,097 8.07 17,905 20,777 4,680 n.o.ble 18,601 11.28 19,466 21,613 3,012 Pike 15,723 11.48 18,172 20,118 4,395 Ross 22,460 5.6 25,758 25,893 3,433 Vinton 13,096 9.4 15,330 15,464 2,368 Was.h.i.+ngton 29,409 7.4 32,481 32,710 3,301

TABLE C

DENOMINATIONS OF THE CHURCHES IN EIGHTEEN COUNTIES OF SOUTHEASTERN OHIO

Key: 1 _Churches in 248 strictly rural towns.h.i.+ps_ 2 _Other rural churches_ 3 _All rural churches_

1 2 3 Total 1,542 593 2,135 Methodist Episcopal 526 216 742 United Brethren 138 43 181 Baptist 124 26 150 Christian 97 13 110 Presbyterian 96 40 136 Disciples 87 39 126 Methodist Protestant 63 25 88 Christian Union 46 5 51 Catholic 43 22 65 Non-Progressive Disciples 28 3 31 Radical United Brethren 26 4 30 Lutheran 21 28 49 Congregational 17 1 18 Reformed 14 16 30 German Evangelical 14 1 15 United Presbyterian 10 23 33 Friends 10 21 31 All others 182 67 249

CHAPTER VI