THE FUTURE.

The great thing needed to enlarge the Society's operations and rapidly develop its system of practical good, is to get our churches and Boards, as well as ministers everywhere, to give the subject a candid and intelligent consideration. The result is not doubtful, it this point is once gained. The Society invites the closest scrutiny of its plans. They were subjected to the severest tests, which business sagacity and experience, and ministerial wisdom could apply, before they were given to the public. We believe the better the Society is understood, in the motives and aims of its founders, in its principles, and proposed methods of relief and provision, the more it will be appreciated, and its success made a matter of prayer and giving and working.

If we had the means to employ for a season two or three active agents to go among the churches and stir them up, and get the matter vigorously started, we should greatly hasten our work. If this shall not prove to be practicable, we have still the Press, which can be used to almost any extent. But the solitary pen of the Secretary is not equal to so great a work. He has used it to the best of his ability, and through every avenue available to him. But a host of other pens are needed; and we have able ones among our friends-pens too which can command other avenues still, and any number of readers, and find ready acceptance for their views. It is all desirable also to secure the consideration of this subject by our various Ecclesiastical Bodies ; and on this field, what the Society can not do collectively, individual friends of it may be able to accomplish in their own particular communion.

CONCLUSION.

In conclusion, both for information and as an incentive to renewed action, suffer us to refer again to the letters recently received in reply to the inquiries which the Society addressed to the ministry of the entire Presbyterian family in the U. S., in connection with the last document sent out. Several hundred of these have already been received, although it has but recently been issued, and each mail is adding to the number. The questions proposed were these:

1. What is your present age?

2. How long have you been in the ministry?

3. What is your present salary?

4. Does it support you? If not, what is the deficiency?

5. Is your life insured, and if so, for what amount?

6. Do you know any Presbyterian minister, or the family of such, who is in needy circumstances? State any facts of interest connected with the subject.

7. Name the most desirable person in your parish with whom the Society might communicate at any time in reference to its work.

The information thus obtained is highly valuable to guide us in future operations. In some aspects it is intensely saddening and painful. It reveals, in the aggregate, a state of things for which we were not prepared an amount of poverty, destitution, sacrifice, pecuniary embarrassment and hopeless dependence, which it is a sin and a shame should exist among any portion of the ministry of this land.

If we have genuine heroes and martyrs among us to-day, we shall find them among the humble, unrequited toilers, and patient, uncomplaining sufferers in our Master's vineyard; the poor, hardworked, and struggling ministers on our frontiers, in our new settlements and among our sparse and forming communities-in a thousand quiet and obscure spheres-who are braving all sorts of evils and trials, and enduring pains, mental and social, keener than those of martyrdom: the men who have pushed the lines of Christ's Kingdom far beyond the bounds of civilization, out into the unbroken wilderness; the men who have been foremost in laying the foundations of both Church and State in all the mighty West and Northwest; the men who have planted the Christian banner on a thousand new fields, won by Christian valor and sacrifice, and to-day teeming with populous States and Territories. But in order to do this, they have been obliged to toil early and late, to endure all sorts of personal and social discomforts and hardships, to devote, unselfishly, all their time and thought and energy, and, besides living on stinted salaries, exhaust their own little patrimonies. Hundreds of this class of ministers are now advanced in life-not a few of them are worn out and must retire; others are approaching the confines of old age, and must, in the natural course of things, soon give place to younger men. They have nothing laid up for the future in this world; the Church has provided for them no "City of Refuge," such as the Mosaic Law provided for the aged Jewish Priest; their declining years must be years of dependence, destitution, and sorrow, in a land of plenty and a church of wealth, which they have greatly helped to nourish and make what they are.

In a brief space we will try to give a summary of the facts stated in these replies so far as received.

1. In nearly one-half of the cases reported, salary not over $700; in very many not over $500, and ranging down to $100. Complaints frequent that even these slender stipends are not paid promptly, and often not in full.

2. In nine cases out of ten, salary insufficient for a support, even by the most economical living possible-the deficiency ranging from $50 to $1,200, and that in cases where the salary does not exceed $1,000 or $1,200.

3. Salary supplemented by teaching, farming, working in mines, chopping and hauling wood to market, selling various articles, by gifts from relatives, using the property of their wives, and their own patrimony, &c., &c.

4. Some few have a small insurance on their lives; but a larger number have been obliged to give up their policies, unable to pay the premium.

5. Cases of destitution and suffering, and no visible means of support, numerous, not one in ten of whom are receiving aid from the "Relief Fund" provided by this church.

Writes one from Maryland, and who is well-known in this city:

"Such is the necessity of aid to several ministers of our Presbytery, that I have for months had an appointment to go North to solicit aid. I have been ashamed to go.. Perhaps after our spring meeting I may feel compelled to do so. May the Lord bless you and your Society of noble Christian men."

His

This is the closing sentiment of a large part of these letters. own salary $800 and the use of some land, deficiency $1,000 a year, and has not been less than this for 20 years. Has spent his own patrimony, and the property of two wives, in order to stay in the ministry.

Writes another, known and revered throughout the Church, long in a prominent position, and for years Chaplain of the U. S. Senate :

"Have read with lively interest your document, for I can fully appreciate many of its statements. I am 67-been 46 years in the ministry. Present salary $300-perquisites and presents $100 more. To make up the deficiency some years ago I obtained a position under the Government at a salary of $1,200., Like Paul the aged, with my own hands I labor incessantly six hours a day every day in the week-preach twice on the Sabbath, and conduct two services through the week. But for the aid received from the Government, you can readily imagine what my condition, at my time of life, would be. With such an experience, and such a prospect for old age and declining health, how can ministers be expected to urge their sons to enter the ministry, and ncounter such a destiny? Is there any reason to wonder that the

number of candidates should diminish rather than increase? Do not suppose that I am indulging in a dissatisfied or complaining spirit. I accept my destiny with pleasure and gratitude, and rejoice in the high privilege of preaching the gospel, even though it be at my own cost."'

Another, from the South, writes: "Have been preaching 31 years. My salary on an average has not supported me by about $300 a year. I have paid this each year for the privilege of preaching. And yet many of our people think it an easy way of living, and even a money-making vocation. Your document (No. 5) I have read with much interest. It is a very able paper. It strikes the right point when it says that 'Relief' is not the true idea, but 'Provision.' Why should ministers of the Gospel be the only class of men who must labor with no prospect of any provision for infirmity or old age? Take my own case. I lost my all in the Rebellion, which I opposed with all my might. My health is now failing-I am unable to do full labor-I have six children who need to be educated, and nothing with which to do it. I need a little home to shelter us, but not a dollar to buy one. A future supply of ministers, it seems to me, must depend very much on a better provision for them. It would require our youth to be baptized with the Holy Ghost above measure, to think of encountering the poverty and hardships of the ministry in most cases in our country."

In a word, we may sum up these hundreds of cases in a single sentence, with a little variation of the figures. Age 55; been 25 years in the ministry; salary $700; does not support me within $300; have no insurance on my life, and no provision of any kind for the future, and no means to make any. Have only God's promises to rely upon.

In reading over these touching records of ministerial life-penned in Christian confidence, prompted by the kindly interest and sympathy of this Society-we can not refrain from giving utterance, in the ears of the American Church and people, to those fearful words of the apostle James, and it seems to us they were never more pertinent and significant: "Behold, the hire of the laborers which have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth."

AMERICAN

PRESBYTERIAN REVIEW.

JULY, 1871.

THIRD SERIES.-NUMBER 11.

ART I.-DARWIN'S THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF

SPECIES.

By Prof. JOHN BASCOM, Williams College, Mass.

FEW scientific theories have ever covered more, or more important, facts than those embraced in Darwin's view of the origin of species. Nor have any theories been presented whose intellectual and moral bearings were more extensive or more interesting than those involved in this solution of the problems of life. Moreover, its advocacy by some of the most industrious, fruitful and able minds of our time makes it a formidable agency in moulding the beliefs of men, and entitles it to frequent and careful consideration, as its growing proofs are developed. Darwin claims that it is already accepted by the majority of younger and rising naturalists. He says: "The time will before long come when it will be thought wonderful that naturalists, who are well acquainted with the comparative structure and development of man and other mammals, should have believed that each was the work of a separate act of creation." This confidence of its advocates, whether well or ill grounded, and the rapidity with which it gains favor, are reasons for candor, caution and inquiry on the part of all. We propose, in the present article, to examine the proofs of this theory, and estimate their force.

The theory is briefly this :-All forms of animal life stand generically connected: they have sprung one from another by