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Transcriber's note


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THE EVOLUTION OF THE COUNTRY COMMUNITY




   THE EVOLUTION OF

   THE COUNTRY

   COMMUNITY

   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




PREFACE


The significance of the most significant things is rarely seized at the
moment of their appearance. Years or generations afterwards hindsight
discovers what foresight could not see.

It is possible, I fear it is even probable, that earnest and intelligent
leaders of organized religious activity, like thousands of the rank and
file in parish work, will not immediately see the bearings and realize
the full importance of the ideas and the purposes that are clearly set
forth 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 delay
the work which these ideas and purposes are mapping out and pushing to
realization.

The Protestant churches have completed one full and rounded period of
their existence. The age of theology in which they played a conspicuous
part has passed away, never to return. The world has entered into the
full swing of the age of science and practical achievement. What the
work, the usefulness, and the destiny of the Protestant churches shall
henceforth be will depend entirely upon their own vision, their common
sense, and their adaptability to a new order of things. Embodying as
they do resources, organization, the devotion and the energy of earnest