SUPPORT OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.

BY THE REV. M. W. JACOBUS, D.D., LL.D.,

Professor in the Theological Seminary, Allegheny, Pennsylvania.

It was jocosely said by a city paper last | You ask them to be non-secular, and yet week that "the ministers of religion in they are driven to secularities to eke out a America are not as well paid as are professional baseball players." "But," it was added, "religion is not the national game." Herein is the urgent call for the agitation of this subject, the lamentable fact that in our evangelical denominations the average salary of the minister is from four hundred to seven hundred dollars..

subsistence. They are charged to provide for their own house, and often they have large households to provide for. And the Scripture warns them that "he who provides not for his own, especially for those of his own house, hath denied the faith" (horrible for a minister), " and is worse than an infidel;" and what can be worse than that for a minister of Jesus Christ? What then?

III. Shall they be left to the individual church which they serve to support them? But what if the church is feeble in resources and unable to pay a living support? Or what if the church is indifferent to the Gospel? Do you say they do not deserve to be ministered to? But they most need these very Gospel ministrations to instruct, and arouse, and save them. We send the Gospel to the heathen on this principle, and we pay a living salary to our foreign missionaries,

How shall this class of men be supported? The natural answer is: "Each man for himself, as in other professions. Let him enter the market and live by his profession. A man will commonly fetch what it is worth." "Brains will command a salary. Valuable services will find fair compensation." But what is the standard of value? A man in ill health will pay the physician his price for professional counsel, because he values his life and health. But here, the more the man is under the power of disease the less he cares for the cure. One will pay his law-in order that the people may be brought to yer well for counsel in saving his property. But, alas! this lawyer who will aid him to save his soul is undervalued and underpaid. What then? Who are these men? What is their function and vocation? They are guardians of the public weal; conservators of the public morality; pillars of society; promoters of law and order; needful, indispensable to the State as well as to the Church. Silence the ministers of Christian-ling-bargains with a servant of Christ as ity in the land, and what hope is left for the commonwealth? But how shall they be supported?

I. Shall we demand of the State to support them? No. For the grant would be cumbered with conditions which we could not accept.

value the Gospel enough to pay for it, and to aid others who are unable to pay for it. And only so can our blessed Christianity make progress against sin and mammon. To say to the feeble districts and the frontier communities, "If you want the Gospel, pay for it as you pay for any thing else." This is the bare commercial principle that hires the minister, and counts him a hire

with a coachman, or a foreman in the factory, or a field-hand on the farm; and on no higher principle than to get the service at the least cost.

"You are the minister we hired last night,” said one of the congregation to the new preacher. "No! I am not." "But you certainly are the same man that we hired at so much, for I was there, and voted on the salary." "You are mistaken, sir." "How

why ?" "I am the man whom you called to be your pastor, and a salary belongs to the office, else I could not serve. Do you hire General Grant to be President, or Gentoeral Hartranft to be Governor. No; but you elect them to those responsible offices, and they receive the salary which belongs to the office."

II. Shall they be left to support themselves by outside and secular avocations? That would be a diversion from a work to which they should be wholly devoted. And when they are called to the work in any congregation it is commonly with the formula: "In order that you may be free from worldly cares and avocations, we promise pay you the sum of dollars." But, alas! So large an object, and so small a provision! How ridiculous it seems, when the sum promised for such effectual relief from worldly cares and business is four, five, or six hundred dollars! No!

IV. But if the minister's salary is wholly inadequate, what then? It only remains that the Church at large, in the respective

denominations, shall see to the support of its own ministry.

Jesus Christ has enunciated the great truth, "The laborer is worthy of his hire" ought to have it. And with his heart of sympathy for all laborers-in the mines, and mills, and factories, and streets he said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor." But he emphasized the doctrine in reference to his own laborers in the ministry when he said, "The workman is worthy of his meat," and then plainly, "The Lord hath ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel." As they who of old ministered at the altar partook of the things of the altar, so in Christian times the minister in spiritual things shall be sharer in your temporal things. This is God's ordinance as much as the Church or the ministry is his ordinance.

And then it is that in the unity of the Church as one body there is found the fundamental principle, the key and clue to this whole matter. The stronger should help the weaker. "We, then, that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves;" not to plan merely for our own individual church interest and comfort. "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ," as you can not otherwise do. While "every man shall bear his own pack," bear ye the burdens of one another in which they require your help (Gal. vi., 2, 5).

And this is the interest of the Church which is served. The Roman Catholic Church sends out her ministers and says, "Go work, and we will sustain you." Beyond the right which the ministry has to the support of the Church whose ministers they are; beyond the simple justice which is claimed, as between man and man, that, in giving their whole selves to the work, they should be decently supported, it is plain that in order to be efficient in their work they must be maintained at it. They need the tools; books are costly. It needs money to buy them. You require the minister to be versed in learning, and you must furnish him the

What now, it may be asked, are some of the hinderances in so fair a work as the support of the Christian ministry?

1. The Apathy that prevails from Want of Consideration and Examination. The facts are not known, or not regarded. How sadly the ministerial force in the Church is reduced and paralyzed by such a state of things. Many leaving the ministry for lack of support; many only half serving the Church for the same reason. These, at best, have little of permanency in the ministerial relations. Shifting from place to place for a better settlement, and so losing, at every shift, so much of the solid benefits: candidating, to the disgrace of the ministry, when it is really the disgrace of the Church, whose ordained servants they are. The Church has educated the minister, and has commissioned him and sent him forth to shift for himself and to sustain himself, to seek a market for his education and his gifts, and for her wares. And see the men fall prematurely, breaking down under the discouragements, and becoming prematurely disabled for life, just because they were not properly enabled by church aid to do the work of the Church.

2. False Views of the Subject-as that "the matter will regulate itself." "Good men will not be left to starve." Ah! but they come very near to starvation, and never make it known, and die of cold neglect. Or it may be thought, if not said, "that somehow it was meant that ministers should be poor, and that poverty is to them a necessary means of grace." How would the people like this for themselves? Or "that the Levites had no inheritance." No real estate indeed. But a plenty of personal estate; that which they could eat, and live upon better than upou unproductive acres. In one of the leading denominations, the young ministers have even been advised by eminent authority not to marry, but "to wait for connubial felicities until they are properly established". which is equivalent to counseling thousands of our young ministers to postpone marriage indefinitely on account of the meagreness of their support. Shall we, then, be driven to They must not be distracted with secular a system of Protestant monkery, rather than cares and callings, else they can not work that the Church should do justice to her to advantage. You require them not to be ministers for their mere support? A church secularized, and you drive them into secular- is only half served which has not a shepities by the necessity of a livelihood. You herdess of the flock along with the shepprevent their efficient labor, and condemn herd. But you pay her no salary. Yet she them for inefficiency-withhold the means deserves one, if she is a true-hearted wife of purchasing books, and condemn them for of the minister; and these women are sufignorance. "Who goeth a warfare at his ferers in our new and feeble districts quite own charges?" What is an army without ra- beyond the women who go to the distant tions? What is all the equipment of war— heathen. ammunition, discipline, and men- -without But the faithful wife of the young mina commissary department? Starving bat-ister might well command for her husband talions must give up the field. Cut off the an additional salary for her support and for enemy's supplies if you would cripple and her service. I undertake to say that the capture him. women in our wealthy churches ought to

means.

be moved with sympathy and pity toward these toiling wives of our missionaries and pastors in the feeble districts-women often of the highest culture and of delicate living hitherto, who have gone out from the most comfortable Eastern homes, and are drudging in the kitchen, and coming to premature graves by overwork, for the help they are zealous to give to their husbands as ministers of Christ Jesus. "Woman's work for woman" ought to include this great field -can not fairly omit it without a burning shame. The Rebeccas and the Rachels who go out to water the flocks, and who do so much of the hard work in the social appointments of the Church-visiting, begging, ministering at sick-beds, and keeping up the sociabilities of the congregation by toilsome attentions, often rigorously exacted of them these are the women who labor with us in the Gospel, and who ought to be helped (Phil. iv., 3). And nothing will so directly and effectively reach the case as to secure to the pastor something like a decent support, that he may not be broken down by the care and distraction of poverty and debt. And if the Church at large in the several denominations is bound to look after the support of her own ministry, how is this to be done?

1. There is the parish endowment system of the Established Kirk of Scotland, instituted by the able efforts of Professor Robertson. It maintains the principle of endowed territorial work and erecting parishes in certain districts where otherwise the ordinances could not be maintained, or raising mission stations into settled parishes by providing an endowment of £3000-equal to $15,000 of our money, yielding a minimum stipend of £120, or $600.

addressed by the Duke of Argyll. (See Report in Glasgow News, Oct. 2, 1873.)

2. There is the Sustentation Scheme of the Free Kirk of Scotland, instituted by Dr. Chalmers. This proceeds upon the plan of a common fund, to be distributed equally among all the churches, excepting only a few, which are mission stations. It was the exigency of the disruption which led to this expedient for providing support for the ministers who had relinquished their living by throwing off their connection with the State. All the contributing churches, however little they may give, are entitled to the apportionment, share and share alike. But this contemplates only a minimum of salary, which is supplemented by the wealthier churches as they may be able and willingeach for its own pastor. The minimum reached has steadily advanced, until now it is worth about $1000 of our money.

Dr. Chalmers, who was the leader in devising and carrying out the scheme, came soon to believe that some conditions of selfhelp should be insisted on, in order to avoid imposition on the part of such as would willingly receive, but would not willingly give. He proposed, therefore, and urged the plan of what was called the one-half more supplementing, according to the amount contributed. And it was a sore regret and disappointment to him to be defeated in this feature of his plan. (Life of Chalmers, by Dr. Hanna.)

Under the able administration of Dr. Buchanan, assisted also by Dr. Candlish, the Sustentation Fund has steadily increased beyond the most sanguine expectations.

3. The Sustentation Fund in the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, now three years in progress, proceeds upon the same general princiThis method has succeeded in endowing ple of share and share alike, but emphasizes 181 new parishes in the course of twenty the supplementing by the individual church. years. The excellent results have been that, It is planned and urged to have the pewbesides thus planting the Church, with its rents applied to this object of adding to the ordinances, as a permanency, the liberality pastor's dividend, while the other church of the district thus aided has been culti- expenses shall be provided for by the (envated. "The newly endowed parishes in the velope) weekly offering. This has been course of the last year contributed an aver- found to work admirably, so that the pasage of £34 to the missionary schemes of the tors have received during these three years Church, besides the large sums they were £10, £15, and £20 more than under the Govforced to contribute to the other mission-ernment pay. But as a check upon the parary operations in their own neighborhood-simony of churches that would receive freeamounts largely in advance of their contri-ly, and care little to give, it is required that butions in the old parishes." At the same time, and during these twenty years, upward of two hundred churches have been built by the voluntary contributions of the members of the Church, and in connection with this scheme.

This is the scheme to which James Baird, of Auckmedden, has recently donated the munificent sum of £500,000, or two and a half millions of dollars. And in the interest of this scheme an enthusiastic meeting was lately held at Helensburg, presided over and

the contribution to the fund, as a condition of aid, shall be at least a penny per week for each member, as the average, equal to our two cents, or about one dollar per annum; and that the Church shall have so contributed during a term of three years before being admitted to the benefits. The ruling eldership and laity in general, led by such men as Thomas Sinclair, Esq., of Belfast, have greatly furthered this noble work.

4. The Sustentation Scheme of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the

United States. This is the supplementary | (fulfilling these conditions) and mission stamethod, upon fixed conditions of aid.

conditions are as follows:

1. Actual installation of the pastor.

These

tions, or church extension charges, which come short of these conditions, more or less. Not that the committee make pastorates, only that they designate a class of churches in

2. Salary of at least $500, and as much more as pos-relation to this scheme as full pastorates or

sible.

3. Average of at least $7.30 per member, exclusive of manse. In case of two or more churches, united under one pastorate, each church must pay the average per member.

4. Indorsement of Presbyterial Committee, and of

Presbytery also.

not.

2. A second condition is the actual payment by the Church of at least $500 as salary to the pastors. Churches falling short of this are designated as mission stations. These are such as have been lately planted by the Home Mission Board, which may or may not aid from that Board, are not yet able to pay live and thrive, or such as, after years of so much of themselves. The scheme appeals here to the voluntary principle, and demands that this principle shall not be abused so as to allow the churches thus aided to do as little as they please, but that they shall be en

9. No aid where aid-receiving churches are contiguous, and should consolidate under one pastor. Grant to date from actual fulfillment of above conditions. Pastor to bear no part of the $7.30 or of the one-twentieth payment. Salary supple-couraged rather to do as much as they will, mented to $1000. Payments are made at close and as much as they fairly can. The mission of the quarter. stations doing less than this may or may not attain to this. But so much as this may soon be expected of them if they have the

FOR SECOND YEAR.

1. New application re-indorsed and conditioned as elements of vitality and thrift that look to

above.

2. Evidence of advance toward self-sustentation.

It will be observed that this scheme is, in its details, quite different from either of the foreign systems, though proceeding upon the same great principles. The aid from the central fund is distributed, not share and share alike, but on conditions applicable to the several cases, and which graduate the amount of aid. The individual church must first do its utmost for the pastor, and the supplementing comes from the central fund, on the basis of the home salary.

ward speedy self-support. And here also the church, by thus responding to the demand for self-help, escapes the humiliating sense of dependence-feels that the grant is not a pension, but is rather earned as a recognition of their own successful effort toward self-support. In many cases the home salary paid by the church is $600, $700, or $800. And whatever it may be (not less than $500), it is supplemented so as to reach $1000 on the fulfillment of all the conditions. Here it is held that the sum of $1000 is little enough for the support of a pastor devoting himself wholly to his work. As he is required to relinquish outside pursuits for supplementing his salary, so the $1000 is regard1. As regards the several "Conditions." In ed as a minimum of living support. At the the Presbyterian Church, of over four thou-same time, it is the maximum to which the sand ministers, it was found that only about supplementary aid extends. It is not dissixteen hundred were actual pastors, nearly one thousand being "without charge," another one thousand being "stated supplies" -that is, supplying vacant churches statedly, but not regularly inducted as pastorsand besides these, six hundred or more were enrolled as having divers occupations, as professor, editor, teacher, etc.

The method in the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland is somewhat similar to this.

puted that many will require more than this amount for support in certain more expensive circumstances. But all the cases can not as yet be reached by the scheme; and, meanwhile, the Home Board can meet such exceptions with their more flexible aid.

Prior to the operation of this scheme it was estimated that nearly two-thirds of our ministers received less than $1000, and onethird of them less than $600, and that the average salary was less than $700.

The pastoral relation having thus come so seriously into disuse, it was judged of the highest importance to insist upon the actual installment of the minister as a condition 3. But it is also required, as a standard of of aid, in order to a more permanent and individual responsibility, that the home salmore effective service. And, inasmuch as ary shall amount to a minimum average of the loose, shifting, and unsettled method of $7.30 per member-that is, that the salary stated supply had arisen very much out of paid by the congregation shall equal an avthe inadequate support, it was made a prime erage of two cents per diem, or $7.30 per year, condition and object of the better support for each member of the church. Not that to promote the pastoral relation, especially each member shall pay this amount, but that in the older districts. The scheme distin- the total shall equal this average. In some guishes, therefore, between full pastorates cases the average paid is two or three times

more than this minimum. This is a further that, as compared with the corresponding | appeal to self-help, which also individual- term under any former system, there had izes the obligation, and in churches of large been a clear gain in the gifts of these churchesmembership brings home in detail the pecun- in advanced salaries, and in increased coniary responsibility, so as often to reach the tributions to the Board-of an amount equal maximum without the aid of the fund. It nearly to the whole sum expended on them. The is found to be a valuable and productive fea-substantial aid, upon honorable conditions ture of the scheme. In the actual working fixing the pastor's support, served to stimit plainly appears that the voluntary prin- ulate the liberality of the churches receiving ciple may be gently and genially compelled the aid, bringing the people to do much more to a beneficence not otherwise attainable, for the pastor and for the Church at large and that the requirement is a means of grace than they had supposed to be possible, and quite necessary to realize the grace of means more than could ever else have been reached. as against the disgrace of meanness. Herein a discovery seems to have been 4. The fullest indorsement of the partic- made-that the way to develop the benefipartic-madeular case by the church court near at hand, cence of the weak churches is to give them and having ecclesiastical supervision, is req- timely and assuring aid, instead of leaving uisite. them to struggle on under discouragement, and thus sacrifice the toil and treasure expended on them; and that for any denomination this is the method for making the weak churches a power in the community, and for bringing them soon to become selfsustaining and aid-giving in their turn. Thus it becomes most blessed to give. This is where "there is that scattereth and yet increaseth," a sowing for a crop. Already the other denominations are moving toward something of the same sort.

5. And, to prevent all abuse, no church applying for aid can fall back from the salary of the preceding year, so as to take advantage of the scheme to ease their own burdens. 6. And in order to promote promptness in dealing with the pastor, the church must first pay their quarter's salary actually and in full, as a condition of the quarter's installment from the Committee. The working of this feature has been most salutary. And further,

ery particular. The State Congregational Convention of New York has also adopted it, but requiring $600 instead of $500 as the minimum home salary, and $10 instead of $7.30 as the minimum average per member.

7. To induce a proper reciprocity, and to The Congregational Convention of Vercultivate the grace of giving, the aid-receiv-mont has adopted the scheme in almost eving church is required to give somewhat to the fund, in order to receive more. A church contribution is to be made to the Committee's funds, which shall be paid in advance --not in whole or in part by the pastor-and shall not be less in amount than the onetwentieth of the home salary. This is not as a bargain, but as an expedient to institute the systematic giving which is required, and to put this requirement prominently forward as a stimulant to their beneficence.

8. And this is further to be carried out by a systematic giving to each of the schemes of the Church. The aid-receiving church is to be trained thus to systematic beneficence. The method of envelopes, or of collectors, is insisted upon so far as is practicable, in order that weekly offerings may be encouraged, according to 1 Cor. xvi., 1, and in order that the giving may extend to each member and stated worshiper.

RESULTS.

The documents have been asked for by leading members of almost all the other denominations-Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, Reformed (German), and Lutheran. It may be said, indeed, that the movement for a better support of the ministry is general in all the leading evangelAnd it ical churches at home and abroad. is found that the column of ministers' salaries in the "Minutes of the Presbyterian Church" for the last year, 1873, shows an increase of more than half a million of dollars, with an addition of one hundred and sixty-four installations during the two years from the start.

The Congregational Churches of Vermont report this year as follows. Only about one-third of the churches pay their minisLast year (1872-73) was the first full year ters promptly; sixty-five pay from $400 to of operation under this scheme. Over three $650; thirty-eight pay $1000 or more; thirhundred ministers were taken in charge by teen pay not more than $500; twenty-five pay the Committee, and, with various home sala- $600 or less; forty-three pay less than $800. ries from five hundred to nine hundred dol- The Marquis of Lorne and his wife, the lars, were put upon the income of one thou-Princess Louise, have written to the Archsand dollars, as pastors of their several flocks. bishop of Canterbury, proposing that the Some of these have two, three, or four laity of the Church be asked to raise a sum churches. Two hundred out of this three large enough to provide for each curate in hundred-those who had been the longest the Church of England a living of at least time under the scheme-sent in reports of $1000 per annum. the comparative results. And it was found

Of the curates in England and Wales,