142

CHAPTER X
GROWING INTO MATURITY, 1909-45

Growth in numbers had been very rapid during the first eighty years. It was not unusual to hear the confident prediction that at this rate they would soon “take the country,” and it seemed disloyalty to doubt that the rate of increase would continue. But the population of the country was also growing very rapidly, though not so rapidly as the Disciples. So long as there was an open frontier—that is, until about 1890—and even later, while the heavy westward migration continued, the Disciples outran the general population increase. But so also did the Methodists and Baptists. Immigration from Europe brought tremendous reinforcements to Roman Catholics and Lutherans, none to Disciples; and Disciples gained by conversion almost none of these immigrants or their children. The nation was becoming increasingly urban, while the Disciples remained more rural than other large communions. Inevitably there were diminishing returns in growth.

There was a high point in 1910. It was higher still in 1914, with an abrupt drop of nearly 300,000 to 1915, and a fair rate of growth thereafter. An improvement in statistical methods probably explains the greater part, though perhaps not all, of the apparent loss in 1915. Certainly there was no great disastrous event in that year. Perhaps some of the “Churches of Christ” were included in the count until 1915. Here are the figures since 1900:

143