parts of the Church the call has come to develop this phase of its activities. Sundayschool and Young People's Committees in Presbyteries and Synods which formerly did little or nothing beyond the preparation of an annual report, have organized for aggressive work; and campaigns of visitation, with conferences, are being held in various localities, stimulating the workers in each church, and helping them to solve their problems. This work is looked upon as being of such vital importance that Presbyteries are assigning their most active and successful ministers to the Sundayschool committees. These are hopeful signs for our Church, and it should be a source of satisfaction to us that while the various denominations are organizing their forces and preparing for what has been called "the greatest revival of the ages," which is to come through the Sunday-school, the Presbyterian Church has such a wellorganized force already at work to help in bringing this about. Extension Work. This Board's slogan is, "more and better Sundayschools." In our efforts to improve the work of our church schools we must not lose sight of the multitude of children in our land who do not have the opportunity of Sunday-school instruction. It is as true today as it was when this work was inaugurated, that the most effective method of introducing the organized forces of Christianity into the new and rural parts of our land is through the medium of the mission Sundayschool. The aggressive prosecution of this work is the only hope our Church has of fulfilling its duty and discharging its responsibility and placing the opportunity of a religious education within the reach of the boys and girls in the country districts. Our force of one hundred and twenty-five Sunday-school Missionaries is doing a work which means more Its Claim. to the future of our Church and country than many of us realize. In view of the far-reaching influence of this work we feel that it has a strong claim upon the benevolences of the Church. There has been a tendency to leave it to the Sunday-schools to contribute toward this object on Children's Day and many congregations have never included it in their budget of benevolent gifts. The reasons why the members of our churches should support such a work are so obvious that it is unnecessary to dwell upon them here. The neglect of many congregations to contribute is not because of a lack of appreciation of the importance of the work; but because the Sunday-school contributes toward it, and church sessions have felt that in this way our Board was being properly provided for. Our church membership should not pass by such a worthy cause in this half-hearted fashion. From April first, until December first of this year, the congregational offerings have shown a decrease of nearly twelve per cent. Last year only $58,500 was contributed through congregational offerings, less than one-third of the amount required to carry on the work. An Advance Movement. The time has come for an advance movement on the part of our churches in contributions. The Board has gone forward, sparing neither effort nor expense to secure the best that is obtainable in Sunday-school and Young People's work, placing it within the reach of the smallest Sunday-schools and Young People's Societies. So hearty has been the response to our forward policy that we must go on and enlarge upon what we have already done. The limit of our resources has been reached, and larger gifts must be received before we can make a further advance. May we not have the encouragement and financial support of every congregation? Let us hear from you before March 31, 1911. MINISTERIAL RELIEF B. L. AGNEW, D.D., LL.D., Corresponding Secretary. T A Sacred Work HE work of the Board of Relief has appropriately been called "A Sacred Cause." It is a public recognition on the part of the Church that she owes to her faithful superannuated ministers a living after they have given all they ever possessed of physical strength, of mental endowment, and also of money to the service of our common Master. If they have not been able to lay by sufficient money during their active ministry to support them and their families in their old age, the Church is bound by every sacred obligation of Christian fellowship and honor to provide a support for them when they are compelled to retire from active service. THE BOARD. The Board of Relief was organized by the General Assembly in 1876, and incorporated the same year. THE CLAIMANTS UPON ITS FUNDS. The Board is charged with the responsibility of raising money to distribute among the ministers and their families whenever the time comes that any minister or minister's family is found to be in need. Each one is a proper claimant for a fair share of the fund held by the Board for distribution. Its work is as wide as the world. It has upon its roll ministers and women missionaries of both the Home and Foreign fields, the disabled ministers of our Church, regardless of where they have labored, and the widows and orphans of Presbyterian ministers wherever they are found to be in need of relief. CLAIMANTS RECOMMENDED. Any person having a claim upon the funds of the Board presents his or her case to the Chairman of the Standing Committee of Presbytery on Ministerial Relief, and the committee considers the merits of claim, and then recommends the Presbytery to ask a certain amount to be paid by the Board, and as far as possible the Board pays the amount recommended. These recommendations have been regarded as necessary by all the different denominations having Boards of Relief, in order that the Board may be able to give to each claimant his or her fair share of its limited funds. THE ROLL. The Board has now represented upon its roll 1,143 ministers' families. The roll is rapidly and steadily increasing. It has doubled in twenty years. AMOUNTS PAID. The amount paid to the different claimants varies according to their circumstances, the amounts running from $100 to $350. At the last General Assembly the Board requested that the amount paid to ministers on the Roll of Honor, that is, to ministers who are over 70 years of age, and who have been in active service not less than 30 years, and who are honorably retired, should have their annuity increased from $300 to $350, and that has been done. THE PRESENT FINANCIAL CONDITION. The churches are more than $3,500 behind in their contributions, and the appropriations of the Board are nearly $11,000 more than they were this time last year, making a shortage of more than $14,000. THE ENDOWMENT. Whilst the Board now has an endowment of $2,000,000, the interest derived therefrom, together with the amount received from church and individual contributions has been only sufficient to pay annuities of from $100 to $350. These amounts have proven so utterly inadequate that the last General Assembly recommended an increase of the Permanent Fund of the Board "by at least $6,000,000." Let all pray that this amount may be raised. WR E wish a Happy New Year to all the aged ministers who are helped over some of the hard places in life by the Board of Relief. May great grace be given you to enable you to bear all the burdens of life with that sweet resignation of spirit, which, in your varied experiences of life, you have endeavored to create and develop in others. We wish a Happy New Year to the widows of departed heralds of the cross, who in their old age find the world lonely and the pathway through the dark valley of the shadow of death sometimes sad and dreary, and which car. only be made bright and hopeful by the abundant grace of our loving Lord. We wish a Happy New Year to the young widows whose loving companions seem to have been prematurely called away from life's great work, and who are left with little orphaned children to be reared under the happy influen ces of a Christian home. Would that the Church might say to every young minister's widow, who is left with a child to raise and ro money to do it, as Pharaoh's daughter said to Moses' mother: "Take this child away, and raise it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." Each such child may be a Moses "in the flags by the river's brink." We wish a Happy New Year to all those who have an abundance of the good things of this world, and yet may not be able to find the comfort and peace which their souls are fondly craving. Nothing will bring more comfort out of wealth than sharing it with others who only know what it is by looking at it and reading about it, or, perchance, from some past experience in life when the sun of prosperity was shining upon them. We wish you to make to yourselves a happy New Year by making a Happy New Year to others. THE CHAMPION OF MINISTERIAL RELIEF-WHO? T BY REV. ALEXANDER H. YOUNG, D.D., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. HE pastor of the individual church? Who better qualified to be such than he? He knows-the long time and large expense involved in fitting a man for the Gospel ministry. He knows how large a number of ministers come from families in middle life who can ill incur such expense. He knows-how meager are the salaries of the large majority of ministers and how almost impossible it is for them to lay up anything for the future. He knows-how hypercritical are many in the various congregations of the church, criticizing the minister's preaching, his person, his dress, his manner of living, his family; and often because of false judgments, requiring a frequent change in pastorates and thus causing loss of time and heavy expense for removal. He knows-how soon the "dead line" comes in his profession, requiring the minister after having reached a certain age, to take smaller and smaller charges at reduced salary, until by reason of so-called "advanced age" he drops out of the settled pastorate altogether. He knows-the trials and self-sacrifices and sorrows and hu miliations of the aged and infirm ministers and their families. What thorough knowledge of them and their families is his! And what an eloquent plea for Ministerial Relief would the simple recital of such facts to his congregation make! It would, if generally presented, bring a generous response from the great Church, which has the welfare of the aged and infirm ministers on its heart. Is the pastor of the individual church, thus qualified to be such, the champion of this most worthy cause? Alas! No. In nine cases out of ten, the most that is said by him on the day set apart for the collection, is, "The offering for the Board of Ministerial Relief will now be taken.” But why this hesitancy on the part of the pastor to make a special plea; this reticence in saying anything in regard to this blessed cause? If pressed for an answer, he says, perchance, "It's like begging for myself; I cannot do it." Here he is wrong, for every dollar that he asks for the current expenses of the Board, will be spent in meeting applications already in. But back of such excuse for this neglect and lying deeper down, is the RELIEF want of a proper ministerial spirit in the profession. There's a college spirit, a class spirit, a club spirit, a lodge spirit, an army and navy comrade spirit, a labor union spirit, that leads men of the same organization or occupation or profession, to care for each other's welfare. A young man said the other day: "I am proud of my membership in the Labor Union. If I as an individual throw down my tools and say: “I'll not work any more, unless I am treated fairly," the contractor may care but little about it. But if a hundred thousand men fling down their tools and say: "We will not work, unless this man is treated fairly," how different! Does any such spirit of fraternity exist amongst ministers as would lead them, not simply to sacrifice a little feeling, but their time, their money, and even their place, for the relief of their brethren laid aside through infirmity? It would seem not. The pastor of the individual church cannot be affirmed, in any proper sense, to be the champion of Ministerial Relief. If not he, who then may be named as its champion? Is the ruling elder of the individual church such? He is next to the pastor, in authority, in influence, in power. He knows something of the sacrifices the minister and his family are called upon to make. He knows, as a business man, the great difference in cost in preparing for business life and for professional life. He knows, full well, that the ministry as compared with other callings is an under-paid profession. The General Assembly recognizing his knowledge, his experience, his influence and power, has repeatedly urged that a ruling elder be appointed in each congregation, to represent the Board of Ministerial Relief, and present this cause to his church. Has this to any considerable extent been done? Does the ruling elder champion the cause of Ministerial Relief? In how many churches does he on the Lord's Day, when the offering for the Board of Ministerial Relief is about to be taken, stand up before the congregation and plead for this sacred cause? If the pastor or ruling elder does not champion it, does the editor of the religious paper do so? The ministry in an unofficial way has done much for the building up and development of the religious press. Many ministers 39 write articles for it without compensation, at considerable trouble to themselves, they gather and send to it church news; from their pulpits they urge the people to take the church papers and at the request of publishers they often send the names of persons in their congregations who might be induced to become subscribers. These papers, many of them, become a profitable investment. The ministers who helped to make them such grow old, are laid aside through infirmity, die. They often leave widows and orphans without proper support. Does the editor champion the cause of Ministerial Relief? Once in a while a kindly notice is given of it and the readers are urged to contribute to its funds. But suppose the whole religious press should champion this beneficent work; should throw open its columns for communications regarding it; and write inspiring editorials concerning it; how soon would its treasury be full; its Endowment Fund be complete? But as at present advised, the editor of the religious press is not the champion of this cause. But if neither the pastor, the ruling elder nor the editor of religious journals champions this work of relief, who does? Unofficially, nobody does. That the Church gives for its current funds year by year, as largely as it does, when those who ought to champion its claims, do so little to bring it before the people, shows that it has a warm place in the heart of the Church. Say what men will, the fault of inadequate support for the aged and infirm ministers is not with the Church. She always responds, and that, too, generously when a proper presentation of the matter is made. Who now will champion this sacred cause? Let every man, woman and child in our congregations, all of whom have been greatly blessed by the Gospel ministry, do this. It is not necessary for one to hold some official position to do it. If men and women are pinned in a railway wreck, it is not needful for one to have a Red Cross badge on before he can help. Each on-looker gladly lends a hand. And so who will, let him or her champion this cause, and make the aged and infirm servants and handmaidens of God glad in knowing that the whole Church has them on her heart. CHURCH ERECTION ERSKINE N. WHITE, D.D., Secretary. S Why a Board of Church Erection? IMPLY, because without, no permanent life would be assured to the majority of our young Home Missionary churches. A year ago in the January number we explained the work and methods of the Board, and it may not be superfluous at the opening of another New Year to give again "by way of remembrance," a brief resumé of what then was said; a very prosaic substitute for the poetic "rosemary." 1. The principle that underlies this work is the Unity of the Church; each part is interested in every other part. 2. The Object is to guarantee to every young church a home; not to give, but guarantee. 3. The Steps to secure aid are: (1) The church to do all it can for itself; (2) secure the certificate of the presbytery's committee; (3) fill out application and send it to the Board. 4. The Degree of aid. Not more than one-third of value and ordinarily not in excess of $1,000. 5. Security. A mortgage is given to the Board, but one that calls for no interest and is never due so long as the church continues; insurance to the amount of the grant under supervision of the Board. 6. Results. Thus churches are inspired to help themselves to the full extent of their ability; guaranteed that their effort for a church. home shall increase; and thus in case of possible failure of the enterterprise the funds of the Church at large committed to the Board are safeguarded. In sixty-five years more than 9,000 appropriations to the amount of over $6,000,000 have been made. |