“If I ever plow again, I am not going to kid myself into thinking that the cultivator will straighten out the sins of the plow.” This raw-boned farmer and his wife, possessed of the fairest intentions in the world for their children, had become trapped in a godless community before they were aware of it; all because the seed-bed of human life had not been plowed deep with social religion at the very outset. Is this community a fair example of bibleless country groups? I believe it is. I am sorry to admit it, but I believe it is a fair type. _When the Bible Has No Interpreter_ If a nation can not build civilization securely without a knowledge of history, neither can children build character without a knowledge of those men and women of history who have essayed to know God. The Bible is the story of such persons. It is biography. It is lives of those in whom the soul of man in his search for God has risen to its highest levels. There is no substitute for this Bible biography,--except, if you please, another Bible. And perhaps, in point of Bible illiteracy, next to the community which has no Bible in it, lies the community in which, though there is a Bible, the leaders in teaching the Bible, or rather in explaining the Bible to the children, are themselves grossly ignorant, if not demoralized. The Bible is a book of many stories, of a host of incidents, of innumerable ideas. Selection is vital. To select from the Bible and hand on its meaning in grave ignorance is to run the risk that all ignorance runs. Here is where many a rural community suffers, when it is commonly thought to be provided with a knowledge of God. It fell to my lot recently to visit a small rural community of twenty-five families of this type. Only three of the families were totally without church connections, or at least church traditions. One church building has fallen in. One lies torn down. The third, still standing, is rotting. It is supposed to be “haunted.” Splits disorganized and discouraged the people. A fourth rude church structure has come, but splitting up from within has begun. Ignorance of a crass sort rules. The Bible has had no well-balanced soul to interpret its wonderful truths. The family histories of this settlement run--to speak very grimly indeed--like an anthology of despair and depravity. Listen: “She drowned her babies regularly in the creek.” “He was said to be the father of his own daughter’s first child.” “This woman was subnormal and has three illegitimate children.” “This other woman is a menace to every man in the community.” “He committed suicide.” “She poured kerosene on the cat and set fire to it.” “Boil nails in water to find out if person for which water is named committed a crime. If nails crackle and knock against the pan, then person named is guilty.” “A person dies hard on feathers. We took mother’s bed out from under her three times when we thought she was dying.”