The Negro's church,.

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The Negro's Church

dependable"; and further because when the artificial enthusiasm aroused by the protracted meeting subsides, so does the
aroused activity of the church. Of the revivals held, 63 per
cent. lasted one week; 32 per cent. lasted two weeks; and 5
per cent. lasted three weeks.
This reflects a change from the old custom of continuing
these meetings at least two weeks. The landowners, a strong
minority group in the rural areas, are interested in having
good farmers busy on their land. If their workers, tenantfarmers and share-croppers, dissipate their energy and "fire"
in the "big meeting," the farm work will suffer. It is reasonable to suppose that the landowners may have helped to
shorten the duration of protracted meetings.
Another rapidly passing feature of the revival or protracted
meeting is the professional evangelist. The regular pastor in
57 per cent., and a visiting pastor in 39 per cent. of the
church revivals, were substituted for the professional evangelist. The reasons given for this substitution were very
pointed. The evangelists as a group seem more interested in
money than in the individuals to be taught and led; and they
are also interested in the show of numbers, in quantity rather
than quality of work. On the other hand, there is greater
probability that the pastor of another church will enter sympathetically into the effort, and that there will be greater
cooperation between him and the resident pastor.
The Sunday Church School
The rural churches place the Sunday church school next in
importance to the church service. The ministers are forced,
because of their absentee relationship, to leave much of the
work of this department to lay leadership. The total enrollment of schools in the 185 rural churches is 8,084, or 30 per
cent. of the total church-membership of 26,845.
The enrollment in the rural schools represents a smaller