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young ministers for the pioneer work of the West, from both Old and New School seminaries; and had never yet wanted funds to pay the above sum to all in their service. We hope the minimum standard in the United Church will never be less than this, and that herein we shall provoke and be abundantly provoked to love and good works.

As discussions have been started, indicating a disposition in some quarters to have the United Church substitute the agency of a voluntary society for that of the Presbyterian Board in the conduct of Foreign Missions, we are happy to entertain and declare the conviction that this will meet little support from our brethren lately known as New School. The following action by their Assembly shows that, while they justly refuse any sudden withdrawal of their contributions from the American Board until arrangements shall be adjusted to their new relations, they intend to be true to the understanding had on this subject in the "concurrent declarations" :

"The Standing Committee on Foreign Missions would report upon the paper emanating from the Prudential Committee of the Assembly, which was referred to them, as follows: That, in view of the fact that appropriations of the American Board to the support of its missions have been made in advance for the year ending September, 1870, and it is not only a great embarrassment to the Prudential Committee, but also great injury to the cause of mission will result from a sudden contraction in the receipts of the Board, Therefore,

"Resolved, That the Permanent Committee be requested to urge upon the churches, hitherto contributing to the American Board, that they do not withhold their contributions from it during the present fiscal year.

"Resolved, 2d, That the Permanent Committee be also directed to call the attention of our churches to article sixth of the concurrent resolutions passed by the Assembly at the May meeting, which reads as follows: 'There should be one set of committees or boards for Home and Foreign Missions, and the other religious enterprises of the church, which the churches should be encouraged to sustain, though free to cast their contributions into other channels if they desire to do so.'

"Since, in this resolution the Assembly has presented its matured and wellbalanced judgment in regard to the future relations of our churches to the method in which the work of Foreign Missions should be carried on.'"

The Evangelist assures us that there will be no wavering in their body in regard to keeping this in its obvious meaning, and that, while the liberty of contributing to other organizations will not, of course, be interfered with, yet the body will be faithful to the one ecclesiastical Board of the United Church con

templated in the concurrent resolutions; and this, not only for the sake of good faith in the premises, but because the convictions of our brethren are in favor of church organizations to do church work, not less in the foreign than the home field.

The following overture from the Presbytery of Kansas to the New School Assembly shows that the principles advanced in this journal, once and again, in favor of providing an adequate Sustentation Fund by the whole church, for the respectable support of all its ministers, are beginning to take root in the church at large. The facts and reasonings of this document it is hard to gainsay. Dr. Chester, chairman of the Committee on Bills and Overtures, read the following report:

OVERTURE FROM THE KANSAS PRESBYTERY.

To the General Assembly:

The committee to whom was referred the subject of a Sustentation Fund to prepare an overture on it to the General Assembly, submit the following paper: The Presbytery of Kansas has felt for years the embarrassments attending the inadequate and uncertain support of the ministry. Ministers are crippled—their energies are divided, if not distracted. Spirituality suffers entire consecration is a figment. The great fields are not cultivated, our Lord's work is not done, Presbyterianism lags behind in the peaceful contest of denominations. Why is this? What are the facts in the case? Ministers are obliged to labor with their own hands, to supplement the scanty support furnished by the feeble Western churches, and the Presbyterian Committee on Home Missions. The promised support is not only inadequate, but it is also uncertain. The ability of the people changes from year to year. In their struggles to get homes, or to improve their condition, they often become crippled in their resources. Selfishness grows as freely as our prairie weeds, and worldliness is almost certain to abound. Denominationalism, in the absence of educational institutions controlled by our denomination, is weak, and Presbyterians are ready, in many instances, to abandon their church for a cheaper one. The aid furnished by our Committee on Home Missions is also uncertain. It is liable to be reduced from year to year, if not entirely withdrawn, and in circumstances which are oppressive to the missionary or stated supply. These are facts, and in connection with others we place two other facts. The minister is a man, and is bound by the laws of God and man to provide for himself and his own household. There is the strugglehe would give himself entirely to the ministry, but the cry for bread is in his ears, and he must hurry to the field or workshop.

The embarrassments felt by the Presbytery of Kansas are felt in some form both East and West, so that Presbytery in overturing the General Assembly on a Sustentation Fund that will do away with these difficulties, speaks for the whole church, and in sympathy, it is believed, with the felt necessities of the hour on this subject. The extravagant style of living at the East and in large cities, the restless adventure in all forms of material resources and action, the strife of corporations, the emulation of individuals, the show and display of private and public

life, the worldliness of the age, and the unwise excess of living, in numerous cases beyond available means, indispose and incapacitate the members of our churches and congregations to meet the necessary increasing expenses of living, and support adequately the ministry. They give up experienced ministers, especially if they have families, for young and inexperienced ones, who can live for moderate salaries. The church in such an unhappy state of things loses the benefit of ripe scholarship and rich experience, and is necessarily led into superficial actions and forms of life by those whose scholarship and experience are necessarily immature. Nor is this all. The ministry in many cases is demitted entirely, and good talent lost to the church and the world.

The capricious and unregulated voluntary principle, in which we have reposed for a stable and sufficient ministerial support, has failed us, in one important thing at least a certain support. The fluctuating means furnished by the church have been governed by no law. Complaints have rung out on all sides, and after reiterated efforts to bring the church up to her duty, the hearts and homes of many of the ministers have been pained with the question, "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed ?" We speak advisedly when we say that the capricious and unregulated voluntary principle is, and has been all this. If the church were wholly consecrated to God, if his revealed will were the law of giving, as well as the law of action, and the church could be made to understand that it is not the support of a certain man as a minister that is provided for in the word of God, but the ministry as a consecrated body of men, not unlike the tribe of Levi under the Old Testament dispensation, then the voluntary principle would cease to be capricious and unregulated by the express will of God, would become a stable support, and able churches would not be content to meet liberally the wants of their own ministers. They would see that every minister is furnished for his work, and amply supported in its performance. What is to be done? Is this state of things to continue, and the work of the Lord to suffer by its continuance? Is the tribe of Judah never to provide comfortably for the working tribe of Levi? The approach of the re-union of the two great Presbyterian bodies in the United States offers a good opportunity to change this unjust state of things, and inaugurate a general movement to raise a Sustentation Fund for the certain and adequate support of the ministry. We have the noble example of the Free Church of Scotland, so that the movement is not of the nature of an experiment, and we are in far more favorable circumstances to attempt it than the Scotch Church ever has been. The fund can be raised, and the minimum stipend of every minister can be placed at $800. What would be the consequences? The churches would be better served, the pastoral relations would be more sacred, the ministry could give undivided attention to the ministerial work, an increasing supply of good candidates could be secured, the work of the Lord in the pulpit, and in every other place and form would be urged forward with more devotion and zeal, and the homes and families of ministers would be made comfortable. The Presbytery of Kansas, thus viewing the whole subject, and believingly entertaining these views, is constrained to overture the General Assembly to take steps to secure, if possible, at the consummation of the union, the attention of the united churches to the raising of a Sustentation Fund for the ministry.

October 13, 1869.

WM. H. SMITH,

Stated Clerk of the Presbytery of Kansas.

ANSWER TO THE OVERTURE FROM THE PRESBYTERY OF KANSAS.

To the overture from the Presbytery of Kansas, commended by the Synod of Kansas, asking that measures be taken by this General Assembly to provide a Sustentation Fund, by which the salaries of our ministers may be secured and equalized, the Assembly would reply by referring to its answer given to similar overtures at its session last May, and recorded on page 262 of the minutes.

This answer is given, not at all to express opposition to this overture, which treats of a subject of vital importance to our whole church, but in view of the propriety of originating specific action upon such a momentous matter in the United Church.

Thus the re-union of the sundered Presbyterian Church is fully completed and inaugurated. What next? Shall this great body content itself with rejoicings and jubilations over this grand event? We quite agree with those who would count such an issue of the re-union of these great bodies simply a disgrace and a calamity. We trust that the energies of all, whatever may have been their hesitation or opposition at any previous stage of this movement, will now be devoted to rendering it, in every good sense, a success—a success not of pride, self-complacency, and vainglorious boasting, but a success of real inward unity, animating this external organic union, so that the one body may be inspired by one spirit; that it may be cemented and consolidated in a real, great, and glorious advance of truth, unity, and charity; in an immense growth of sound Christian evangelism, true piety, and of Presbyterian doctrine, order, polity, institutions, life, and manners. Among the periodicals now existing in the United Church, this belongs to the few planted in the original undivided church, years before the division. It then labored to build up the church, and prevent disruption, by advocating the doctrines and order of our standards against heterogeneous and divisive elements. It often incurred the censure of extremists on all sides, while approved by the great heart of the church it sought to edify on the basis of sound conservatism; and its labors have not been in vain, nor have we spent our strength for naught. The cardinal principles which we have maintained in regard to the immiscible nature of Congregational and Presbyterian polities; the conducting of church work by church agencies, and Presbyterian work by Presbyterian agencies; making the standards the only doctrinal

and ecclesiastical basis of union, leaving to the several series of courts of the church to decide what deviations from their ipsissima verba are not inconsistent with the essentials of the system they contain, are now accepted as the true and characteristic principles of the re-united church. And in this church again undivided, with that charity which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, it will endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace; to promote wholesome progress and a sound conservatism; to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, against the triple alliance of rationalism, ritualism, and materialism; to study the things that make peace, and things whereby one may edify another; and to summon to its aid the ablest contributors, new and old, from all, of whatever past or present ecclesiastical connection, who are ready to make common cause with us in maintaining and spreading true Christianity, Calvinism, and Presbyterianism, to the end that-

"SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE, WE MAY GROW UP INTO HIM IN ALL THINGS, WHO IS THE HEAD, EVEN CHRIST: FROM WHOM THE WHOLE BODY FITLY JOINED TOGETHER, AND COMPACTED BY THAT WHICH EVERY JOINT SUPPLIETH, ACCORDING TO THE EFFECTUAL WORKING IN THE MEASURE OF EVERY PART, MAKETH INCREASE OF THE BODY UNTO THE EDIFYING OF ITSELF IN LOVE."

Eph. iv. 15-16.

θεω μονω δοξα.

ART. VII.-The Life of Joseph Addison Alexander, D. D., Professor in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, N. J. By HENRY CARRINGTON ALEXANDER. 2 vols., cr. 8vo. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

THIS is one of the most skilfully executed biographies within our knowledge. It will not address itself to those interested only in secular affairs. It does not delineate the character or unfold the history of a man, whose life was spent in the sight of the world, and whose influence determined the

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