In

has commanded us to preach the gospel to every creature. some of our cities there are half a million of men who are living almost in the darkness of heathenism. Every unemployed minister in our church could be profitably employed in two such crowded places as New York and Philadelphia. And while these thousands have no one to care for their souls, men complain that we have too many ministers! Two-thirds of the human family have never heard of Christ. In many lands to which we have sent missionaries there is not one minister to a million of people. It is a strange thing therefore to hear from the lips of Christians that God has given his church too many preachers. What we want is the heart to support them. There is room for ten times as many faithful ministers as we now have. Even in our land, in some large states, the proportion of our ministers to the population is less now than it was ten years ago. And the records show that all the graduates of all our seminaries would be required in some of the Western States to keep the proportion of ministers to the people what it is at the present time; to say nothing of the constant losses by death, and to the demands of other portions of the land. If the church could be brought to resolve to give an adequate support to every minister able and willing to work, we should soon find that the number of such ministers was too small and not too large. The sin therefore that so many qualified men fail to find employment rests on the church.

4. Another consideration in favour of a sustentation fund is, that it is necessary to render the church aggressive. We are falling behind other denominations. In our cities and towns the Episcopalians are eating us out. In other places the Baptists, Congregationalists, or Methodists, are occupying the ground. We rejoice in the progress of these churches. In every way Christ is preached. But we have our duty to perform, and our part to do in the work of advancing the kingdom of God. Our candlestick will be removed out of its place, unless that duty be performed. The Secretary of the Board of Missions, in his last communication to the churches (Dec. 1865), says: "The requisitions of the past year have not been met. New fields could have been entered, new territories secured, and our church been represented in the advance of that great tide

of population which rolls across the continent."

The demand

for ministers, he tells us, is above the supply; directly the reverse of what some of our religious journals are striving to make our people believe. "Unless," says the Secretary, "the Lord of the harvest furnish the labourers, the harvest, so far as our church is concerned, will be ungathered,-golden opportunities will be lost." "We have not the men." "There are men," he tells us, "who hover around vacancies . . but men glowing with missionary zeal we have not." "Great and precious revivals of religion can only remedy this great and serious evil. Earthly sacrifices are not counted by earnest hearts, who have received the baptism; men of whom our fathers have told us, counted it an honour to suffer for Christ-men who laid the foundations of our church in the early history of our country." It thus appears that important fields are constantly presenting which we cannot occupy. The reason is, that we have not the men who are willing to go. There are men enough to hover around vacancies, but not men of "missionary zeal," "of earnest hearts;" men "willing to suffer for Christ." The whole. fault of the failure of the church to do her duty to Christ and the world, is thus thrown upon the ministers. There is another side to this question. The ministers thus complained of give as much evidence of zeal and willingness to suffer as the rest of us. They are willing to go if they are supported; we are not willing to support them. We say, Go and suffer. It is an honour to suffer. If you had a proper spirit you would not shrink from these earthly sacrifices." Now it is very plain that it is no more their duty to go, than it is our duty to sustain them. They are no more called to make the sacrifice of leaving home and friends, and early associations, and to encounter all the trials incident to a new mode of life, and to labouring among the ignorant and destitute, than we are to make the sacrifice of so increasing our contributions to the missionary fund, as to secure an adequate support to those whom we send to labour and suffer in our stead and to do our work. Until we do our duty, we are not in a state of mind to reprove the negligence or want of zeal of others. Until we take the beam out.of our own eye, we cannot see clearly to take the mote out of our brother's eye. There may be, and doubtless there,

is, in the ministry a lack of the zeal and devotion which they ought to possess. That they will be the first to acknowledge, and we may all join in the same humiliating confession. But this is not the real difficulty. The blame is not with the ministers. It is with the church. If the church refuses to comply with the command of Christ and provide an adequate support for those whom she sends into the field, she has no right to turn round and upbraid them with the want of zeal. Hear what the Spirit says by the mouth of the apostle, "Have we not the right to eat and to drink? Have we not the right to lead about a wife? Have we not the right to forbear working? Who goeth a warfare at his own charges? Doth not the law say the same thing? for Moses said, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox which treadeth out the corn." If men support the brutes who labour in their service, shall they refuse to support their Christian brethren whom they send to labour for the church and for their divine Master? Surely the lips of the church should be sealed until we are willing to perform a duty so clearly commanded and so self-evidently obligatory.

We are slow to believe that our ministers are less zealous or self-sacrificing than the Romish priests, or than the Methodist clergy. They go everywhere. They plant firm feet on all unoccupied territory. Not because they have more zeal, but because they have a church behind them. They are sure of being sustained. They know that they will not be allowed to struggle single-handed, uncheered and unsupported. We find men willing to go to the heathen, because they know they will not be called upon to support themselves or to suffer for the necessaries of life. If therefore the church would do her duty in this matter and secure an adequate support to every minister whom she sends into the field, she would, we are persuaded, have little reason to complain of the want of a missionary spirit in the clergy. At any rate we are bound to do our duty.

It is obvious also that a competent sustentation fund would greatly increase the efficiency of the church. It would redeem from secular pursuits all that portion of time which ministers have now to devote to securing the means of support. Taking the ministry as a whole, it is probable, one-third of their time

is necessarily taken from their official duties for that purpose. We may also reasonably hope for a corresponding increase of their spirituality. At least the excuse for engaging in worldly pursuits would be taken away, and greater responsibility would be imposed. All the institutions of the church would have increased stability and permanence, where they are now occasional, uncertain, and ever changing. We should present an ever-advancing front. Congregations too feeble to support the gospel at all, under this steady culture, would soon be able not only to sustain themselves, but to aid in sustaining others. A new spirit of alacrity and confidence would be infused into the ministry. The church itself would feel a new life in all its parts. It would renew its strength by the exercise of the graces of liberality and devotion to its divine Head, and if the principles which Paul lays down in 2 Cor. ix. 8, is still to be relied upon, it would grow in wealth in proportion as it increased in the bountifulness of its benefactions. There is no surer way of securing the Divine favour, than the faithful performance of duty.

Many objections, more or less formidable, will doubtless be urged against the plan of a sustentation fund. It may be objected that making a pastor independent of his congregation will render him idle. If secure of a support, whether he works or not, he will be sorely tempted to neglect his work. To this it may be answered, 1. That this supposes the minister to be without conscience and without any true devotion to his Master's service. We have greater security against the admission of unworthy men into the ministry than we have against the admission of unworthy members into the church. Such cases will always occur, but to reject a great and necessary scheme, because perfection cannot be secured in its operation, would be unwise. 2. The pastor, even when sustained by a general fund, is not independent of his congregation. The fund can yield him little more than the necessaries of life; and that supply would soon be cut off in cases of persistent neglect of duty. 3. The Methodist clergy, although sustained by a general fund, are faithful and laborious. The same is true of the ministers of the Free Church, and of the clergy of Prussia. The latter are sustained by the government and go through the

laborious parish duties imposed upon them with the regularity of clock-work. Indeed, all the officers of the government, civil and military, are independent of those whom they immediately serve. Our foreign missionaries are faithful and devoted men although sustained by the church at home. We may surely dismiss this objection as derogatory not only to the ministry, but to the promise and grace of Christ. A more serious objection may be founded on the largeness of the sum which it will be necessary to raise. In answer to this it may be said, 1. That sums proportionably large are raised by other churches. 2. That all that is needed to make this burden light is its equal distribution, to be secured by a thorough and efficient organization. How readily were millions of money raised during the war to alleviate the bodily wants of our soldiers. The souls of men can suffer more than their bodies. The greatest difficulties to be encountered will doubtless arise from the undue multiplication of churches. This is a great evil already. In a population not able to sustain more than one church, there are often five or six, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, and Roman Catholic, and that too where there is little or no prospect of growth. The principle should be adopted that a pastor is not to be permanently sustained in any place where the people have access to other evangelical churches, unless he has an adequate field of labour. There must be a rigid supervision as to this matter exercised by not only the Presbyteries, but by the Central Committee, and by the General Assembly.

Notwithstanding these and other objections and difficulties, we believe that if we could secure the services of some man of the executive power of George H. Stuart, of Philadelphia, who made the Christian Commission what it was, the plan of a sustentation fund could be carried into successful operation in the course of a very few years. Then we should stand erect again, with our loins girded, and our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.