Religion: Traveling Parsons

Illinois Episcopal clergymen assembled at Freeport, Ill., last week to analyze the reluctance of divinity school graduates to settle in small towns. It has become as difficult for a country community to hold a parson as it has been to hold a physician. Rev. H. W. Foreman of Manhattan, national director of rural work for the Episcopal Church, told the Illinois men that this was the condition of all the U. S.: “The great difficulty with the rural situation at present is that many of our clergy are merely ‘tenant parsons’ There is just as much danger in this aspect of modern religion as there is in the problem of tenant farmers from an economic standpoint. Young men go into the country sections and do good work for two or three years as a sort of apprenticeship to moving into the city.” He recommended: “A sort of traveling parson who would serve several missionary stations.” And he advocated a minimum wage scale for rural clergy of $2,500.