Synod, the Meeting of, 99, 129 War, some lessons and results of the, 65 A dream of heaven, 234 Anderson, death of Rev. John, 168 Captive and her favourite hymn, the, 18 Carpenter, influence of a village, 269 Church Progress, papers on, 130 Clyde and Irwell, 201 Colours, emblematic, 303 Drafting off, 356 Driftwood, 48 Juvenile Missionary Scheme for 1855, 110 Karaim Jews in the Crimea, 363 Leaf shall fade, the, 205 Leper in the middle ages, the, 208 Melancthon, Luther's prayer for, 106 Nesbit, the late Rev. Robert, 306 Rowland Hill and Lady Erskine, 237 Rusty stove, the, 107 Sabbath Scholar, the expelled, 14 School Committee, Report of, 155 Sheep, where to look for a lost, 309 Spark of temper, the, 75 Spirit of adoption, the, 70 Swiss farmer and the Sabbath, the, 273 Synod, the Meeting of, 139 Teaching of the Spirit, the, 206 Thoughts for teachers, 81 True worship, 304 Unity of the Spirit, how to keep the, 72 War and Missions, 365 What hope did, 303 Who the most heathen? 236 Woman's claim for Sympathy, 275 "By and By," 303 Crucifixion, the, 44 Death, the beauty of, 339 Doomed Man, the, 276 Father's Prayer, a, 204 God is love, 359 "I gather them in," 72 Philosophy of endurance, the, 104 Unseen Purposes, 234 When I am old, 138 Correspondence :- Bradford congregation, the, 82 Church Progress, letters on, 176, 210, 369 Congregational income, 51 Dr. Young's orphan children, 277 Manual of Church Principles, proposal for Ministerial support, 312 Organs in Churches.-Letters signed-Alex- :- Alex. Neilson, 341; James Adam, 367 | Presbyteries' Proceedings:- London, 29, 59, 92, 126, 160, 191, 219, 248, Amoy and Pehchuia, the Mission work at, Bible distribution at, 178 Belgium, the Missionary Church of, 246 19, 21, 52, 82, 111, 243, 314, 373 Church (Gordon), 55 Evening hours with my Children, 25 France before the Revolution (Bungener), 26 Great Journey, the, 88 Hope of the Bereaved, the (Davies), 56 Infant class, Scripture lessons for my, 25 Mimpriss's Treasury Harmony, 214 Vision of Prophecy and other poems War's Catastrophe and Britain's Sins, 214 the late Professor, 377 Children's Messenger, new arrangement, Collections and donations for the College, 27, 58, 90, 125, 189 Home Mission, 27, 58, 90, 125, 160, 189, School Fund, 28, 58, 91, 126, 346, 376 Synod Fund, 216, 347 Corfu Mission, 91, 216 College Circular, 282 collection, 346 Johnston, arrival of Rev. James, 281 Missionaries, letters from our, 376 Lancashire, 92, 126, 190, 248, 320, 377 350 Berwick, 28, 126, 216, 349 Newcastle, 28, 58 Cumberland, 218 Birmingham, 59, 377 Intelligence :- Accounts of Presbyterian Church in Eng- Ancoats, opening of new church, 63 Birkenhead, liquidation of debt, 29 Brampton, opening new church, 219 Canada, Presbyterian Church of, 254 College, opening of winter session, 352 Free Church Assembly, 220 Foreign Mission, collection circular, 160 Genoa, the Waldenses in, 225 Greenwich, Sabbath-school Meeting, 61 ciety, 62 Juvenile Missionary So- Hampstead, induction at, 192 Harbottle, opening new church at, 252 Annual Meeting, 127 Kemp, Rev. A. F., 351 Leeds, new church at, 61 London Wall, Annual Meeting, 94 Lowick, laying foundation of church, 252 Monkwearmouth, reopening of church, 220 North Shields, presentation, 127 Rock Ferry station, 380 Seaton Delaval, bazaar at, 219 School Fund, annual collection notice, 247 Union with United Presbyterians, 60 Wark, opening of new school at, 285 Woolwich, proposed erection of schools, 379 Macintosh, Printer, Great New-street, London. THE ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN MESSENGER. Original Papers. THE SUPPORT AND SUPPLY OF THE MINISTRY. THAT the support and supply of the ministry are connected with one another is a proposition which none, perhaps, will deny. Yet on the precise mode of the connexion opinion has very generally gone astray. The cry of alarm has sometimes been raised lest the scanty support of the ministry should lead to a very deficient supply of candidates for the sacred office. We have never, so far as our own country at least is concerned, greatly sympathized with this apprehension. If in connexion with the above cause a much higher scale of academic qualification were demanded, than is, in fact, the case in any of our Churches, these combined causes would no doubt operate in the way of strong determents from the choice of the ministry as a profession. In countries, too, like the United States, where the remuneration even of manual labour is on a high scale, the danger of a failure in the supply of students for the Church, owing to the insufficient support of the ministry, becomes a real and urgent danger. But in our country, and under existing arrangements, we do not believe that there is much room for legitimate apprehension on this score. Where, then, if not here, does the danger lie? We well remember, and have often pondered a remark of the late Dr. Welsh: "However low," he said, "the salaries of the clergy, there will always be a class to whom they will be prizes." There is a fund of ecclesiastical experience and of true wisdom in the remark. It shows at once what we have not and what we have to dread: not a deficiency in the numbers, but a deficiency in the quality of our preachers. There are many who suppose that to keep down the remuneration of the clergy, is to take guarantees for purity of motive in those who become clergymen. No such thing. In so far as unworthy motives come into play, it is but to tempt a lower class in society to seek for "prizes" which have ceased to be such to a higher class. We repeat, lowering stipends below what is a fair remuneration for men of education, will never prevent sordid men from entering the ministry, it will only secure that these sordid men be drawn from an inferior stratum of society. Even if the remuneration of the clergy were reduced to that of the No. 85.-New Series. VOL. VII. B labourer, still the status of the ministerial office would make it an object of ambition to some. Let us not be misunderstood, as though we were representing pecuniary considerations as the main motives which should or which do constrain young men in our Churches to make choice of the ministry. Higher motives, we trust and believe, are at work in the generality of cases; alas! for us if it were not so. Yet it were needless to expect all ministers to be martyrs, and especially at the early age when a profession must be chosen. The cases are not numerous of those who feel their call to the ministry to be so clear and unambiguous as to leave no choice, and no room for considering the matter prudentially; such cases there will always be to a limited extent, and as regards them it matters not whether the stipends offered be those of Wesleyan preachers or of English bishops. It is not, however, with exceptional cases that we have to deal, but with the mass of those who make choice or may be expected to make choice of the ministry. Very much will ever depend upon the views of parents, and the bent they endeavour to give to the minds of their sons. It is not long since we were conversing with an excellent minister, who told us that while it had been his desire and ambition to see his son a minister, when the time for the decision came, looking at the probabilities of securing an adequate livelihood, he had reluctantly abandoned the design; and instead of advising his son to enter the ministry, had sought for him an opening in the mercantile world. We are not at present pronouncing any opinion upon this judgment, but simply recording a fact, in which those familiar with this subject will recognise only a specimen of a thousand such. Again, if we look to our wealthier elders and laymen, do we find it otherwise? Do we find it a common thing for them to devote their sons to the ministry, or for their sons to be willing to enter it? Or, if our own Church in England is too limited for such an inquiry, do we find it a common thing in the other unendowed Churches in England, or in the Free Church of Scotland? These men hold the ministry in sincere reverence, and regard it as truly the highest profession in which mortal can engage. Why, then, is the ministry not more largely recruited from their ranks? We leave it to the reader of the foregoing observations to give his own answer to the question. It will surely be conceded to us, that it were desirable for a Church to have a good proportion of its ministry derived from at least the educated and more respectable portion of its membership. It is from these classes that we may expect to draw men able to move with ease in any society, and likely to be most useful in commending the truth where others would find less easy access. A Church seriously deficient in this element will run serious risk of gradually losing its hold upon a certain class of its adherents. We need scarcely say that we assume true piety as the first requisite for the ministry, without which all other gifts and accomplishments will be but dazzling deceptions. Nor need we add, that a thorough education we deem to be the second requisite. These will not certainly lose any of their power if associated with the advantageous circumstances we have supposed. Far be it from us to say a word that might deter from the work of the ministry the humblest who has God's call to engage in it. On the contrary, we delight in the mingling of various classes and various gifts in the ministry for which Presbyterianism gives scope, and which is admirably fitted to furnish suitable labourers for the supply of all posts. Yet we must not be deterred by any fear of misinterpretation from pointing out the danger we apprehend as a present danger, both here and in Scotland, of one of the elements we have adverted to being far too scantily represented in the ministry of our Churches. To return to our starting point, this feature in the supply of our ministry is very intimately connected with the general character of its support. We should rejoice to see the average of it greatly increased. Often those who have this in their power, plead, at least in their hearts, as a reason for not increasing the stipends of their ministers, that what would thus be added to their incomes might as well, or better, go to the work of Evangelization elsewhere. They thus satisfy themselves with giving a bare-perhaps a very bare-sufficiency to their ministers; nay, they make a kind of virtue of this, forgetting that this very conduct tends directly at once to depress and so lessen the usefulness of the existing ministry, and to lower the class of the future supply. It is a short-sighted policy, no less injurious in the long run to the congregations and Church which act thus, than to the ministers, who are the first to feel its effects. Schemes to aid poor students, or to assist the families of ministers which happen to be in difficulties (very often because the Church has not given the labourer his just hire), we look upon only as expedients to make the best of a bad system. Raise the remuneration of the clergy to what is fair-we ask no more-and these shifts will cease to be necessary. Let it ever be borne in mind by the Church at large that our ministers might have been laymen, that many of them declined openings and opportunities for success in lucrative professions, or in mercantile life. If they had spent a tithe of the intellect which is expended in the profession of their choice, in selling cotton, or speculating in corn, or freighting ships, their finances would have presented a very different aspect. Let those who are making their thousands for their minister's hundreds remember this, when they are disposed to weigh somewhat grudgingly the propriety of adding 50l. or 100l. to his stipend. Our ministers never expected their profession to be one of gain, but they are entitled to expect that it be made one of comfort. Their minds will not be less free for their Master's work, nor their hearts less disposed to it, when this is the case. We would fain see the Church, and especially the laymen, fairly grappling with this subject; we would fain see our ministers remunerated as men of liberal education, to say no more, deserve to be for their services. In our large towns the thing would be easily done; and even in the country much improvement might be made. An improvement in this direction would have a most salutary influence on our Church and the Church of our children. We are aware that we have been handling a delicate subject, but its delicacy should not deter us from speaking the truth upon it. We speak it all the more willingly that those whose remuneration is in question often do not speak for themselves. We have known more than one case, in which all the funds of a Church have prospered except one, because all but that one received their impulse from the minister; and for it no one else was found to speak: need we say that that one was the minister's stipend. Let us, then, instead of excusing our parsimony in this respect, as is too often done by comparing it with that of others, let us devise liberal things, and by liberal things we shall stand. If we or any of us have already incurred the penalty of withholding more than is meet, |