Another rural study shows a community where 80 per cent. of the people were living on land owned by somebody else. There were five churches, and each of them was struggling for a pitiful existence. Less than 20 per cent. of the people had any connection with the church or any other organization. A minister was sent into this district to make a study of the situation with a view to possible work by the home mission board of his church. In his report he stated that the needs there were just as pressing and demanded just as much statesmanship as any field in India or China. He was furnished with sufficient money to put up a good church building, and the plans of the building provided for social and game rooms. He brought a doctor into the community and attached him to the church as a lay worker. He promoted an interest in better farming methods, and began with organized groups a course of lessons in thrift. Gradually this minister gained the interest of the boys and girls through baseball, basket-ball, singing school, and other community exercises and agencies. People began to come to church. They wanted to hear this preacher, for as one of the farmers said, “A feller who knows enough to talk about the things that we are interested in must know something about heaven. I want to hear what he’s got to say.” The church in this community succeeded, but its success was primarily dependent upon the program that considered the economic needs of the people, and studied to find a remedy for the bad, and to build up the good. =Socialism’s Message to the Church.= Socialism has been sneered at as being a “stomach philosophy.” There is ground for this criticism, for a great deal of socialism is purely materialistic; but the fact that it interests itself in the feeding of the people is not a serious fault. Socialism has emphasized many things that the church has failed to appreciate. Consideration of the food problems and of the economic basis of our civilization is something that the church cannot afford to ignore. The great mass of workers who are producing the food of the world are truly ministers to the needs of humanity.