We refer to these misapprehensions only because of the evil that they from time to time entail upon certain churches. The danger is that too often the officers of the church thus misled plan the church, give out contracts, and encumber themselves with responsibilities from which they cannot be relieved without aid from the Board. At the very moment of their application they are clearly committed to unnecessary expense, and it becomes a matter of life or death with them to receive the full amount for which they apply. And occasionally the Board feels that to save such a church from disaster an appropriation must be made which, upon the broad view of the object of the "trust committed to the General Assembly," it seems improper to make. If these misapprehensions did not exist, there would be few cases of disappointment and discouragement by the declining of applications or the cutting down of the amount asked. This design was kindly furnished by the well-known architect Mr. J. C. Cady. The building is 43 feet wide, and its extreme length, including pulpit, recess and vesti bule, is 55 feet. The seating capacity is from 250 to 300, and, considering its size and beauty, the building is not expensive, costing probably about $3000. If desired, the portion of the room between the porches could be arranged as a prayer-meeting room or parlor, 15 by 25. Elevations and working drawings can be furnished if desired. We publish the following letter, which accompanied the formal application of the church in question, because it portrays the condition of a typical frontier church-a new organization struggling bravely to hold the ground in a community that bids fair soon to be an important centre of population. GRANTSDALE, MONT., June 2, 1887. PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF CHURCH EREC TION. DEAR BRETHREN:-That you may the better determine the advisability of making the grant asked by the church in question, it may be well to add a little more to the answers of the prescribed questions. Grantsdale is a young but growing town, with the excellent water-power of a large and swiftly-flowing creek, upon which a grist-mill and a saw-mill have been in operation for some time. A planing-mill has been commenced, but not yet finished. The Bitter Root Railroad, a branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad, has been surveyed to this town, and the work of grading is now in progress, and the tie-makers are busy preparing the ties. The town is certain to be, for a while at least, a railroad terminus. The Union Pacific Railroad has also surveyed a line through the same place, which promises a junction at this town. We are the only organized church in the place, and our only place of meeting is a log school-house half a mile out of town. This school-house is too uncomfortable for school or services of any kind during the winter, and much of the time at other seasons also, when the wind blows hard, and many take cold in it. Grantsdale is surrounded by an excellent farming district, and people are coming in and taking up the land. As a church our numbers are few, but our friends are many, and are doing what they can to help us. Some give labor, others wheat, oats, hay, bacon, lumber, etc. One poor man subscribed a colt, worth perhaps $10. Cash is Our readers will remember one or two stirring letters from the Rev. Lewis John. ston, of Pine Bluff, Ark. The church of which he is pastor was connected with the Southern Assembly, but the Presbytery of Pine Bluff, within the bounds of which the church fell, has been constrained to turn over the work to our Board of Missions. Dr. Allen writes: The Southern Presbytery, in which he is, have turned over to us all their colored churches (three) and two ministers, and have done so very cordially and of their own volition. We regard this as a very important field. Many of our colored members from the Atlantic states are moving to Arkansas. We have sent another minister to that field, and will send two or three teachers in the fall. We hope to form a presbytery soon. This is preparatory to the following characteristic letter from Mr. Johnston: PINE BLUFF, ARK., July 2, 1887. "Stick to your aim; the mongrel's hold will slip, We are sticking to the church building, and now have some prospect of succeeding. If your Board of Church Erection Fund can't aid, can you speak to some individuals who would like to help one just in such a sad case as we are? I send you a copy of the circular letter, and hope you will feel our interest to such an extent as to help us through. Yours, LEWIS JOHNSTON, We are glad that the movement to secure manses over the territory in which the Board of Church Erection works is meeting with marked success. This success is not wholly confined to the erecting of parsonages with the very limited means at their disposal. It con sists also in calling the attention of the church to the whole subject. There are marked advantages in the system that the Methodists have been led to adopt of an official residence for their minister. Besides the fact that a manse is a very welcome addition to the income of a weak church's pastor, it saves remark on the style in which the minister is living if he is simply using the house his people have provided for him. At the same time, it is well to warn congregations from providing a house that they themselves would not use. The only safe rule for a minister is to live as the average of his people live, and this should be made possible for him.-The Christian Hour. FROM THE FIELD. ASHLAND, OREGON, June 24, 1887. DEAR DR. WHITE:-The check for amount of loan to this church arrived yesterday. I enclose receipt for the same, signed by all the trustees. We also desire to express our most sincere thanks for this favor. Two years ago I paid $15 a month rent for a very poor house. We bought this property, borrowing $1000 at ten per cent. The interest on that I have paid until recently. Now, after a good deal of hard work on the part of all, especially the ladies, and with the aid of your Board, that interest will no longer be demanded, and the church is able to say to its pastor, You are sure of a house in which to live, and that without rent. The property is good, lot large, plenty of choice fruit on it, and room for a garden large enough to furnish good exercise for the pastor. It will not be a hard task for this people to make the payments required. Your personal letter is very kind of you, and I desire to assure you that no more serious inconvenience was caused by the delay than the payment of interest on the money for a couple of months. As the delay was the result of a mistake such as every one is liable to, we do not complain, and we are very grateful for the loan. Thanks too for the extension of time to correspond with the delay. I do not expect to be with this church when the first payment is due, but am sure the church will promptly meet its obligation. Yours fraternally, J. V. MILLIGAN. -, KANSAS, July 7, 1887. TO THE BOARD OF CHURCH ERECTION. DEAR BRETHREN:-Your kind favor, stating that the petition of the church had been granted, was received several days ago. I was rejoiced to get the news, and I learn the members and friends of the church in question were greatly elated and sincerely grateful. If in the future they do not prove loyal to the Board that has helped them so generously, a sharp reminder must be applied, if I have to do it myself. May the Lord direct you in your good work and all the churches hold up your hands. Accept a unanimous vote of thanks from Yours fraternally, MINISTERIAL RELIEF. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. The General Assembly at Omaha, among other resolutions recommended by its Standing Committee upon Ministerial Relief, passed the following: Resolved, 2. That while rejoicing in that whereunto we have already attained, this Assembly recognizes the need of yet more general effort and more liberal contributions both in behalf of the Permanent Fund and for the more generous support of this work in its appropriations for the current year; and emphasizes the recommendation of the last Assembly that "not less than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars be annually contributed to this sacred cause.” The contributions last year from the churches and from individuals amounted to only $118,830. This was an advance upon previous years, but it was thirty thousand dollars less than the amount recom mended by the Assembly at the beginning of the year, and again recommended in the above resolution of the last Assembly. The friends of this cause who have wrought so earnestly in its behalf during the past year will, therefore, see the need of continuing and even of enlarging their efforts if the full sum of $150,000 is to be secured during the coming year. REPORT OF THE SECRETARY'S ADDRESS. The following report of the secretary's address before the last General Assembly is reprinted from the Omaha Republican of Monday, May 23, 1887: Dr. Cattell commenced by referring to the fact mentioned in the report of the committee just read that this Board, out of all the agencies of the church, was the first each year brought to the attention of the Assembly. He hoped no one would conclude from this disposition of the subject so early in the session that the Assembly, like so many churches, wanted to get "the old ministers" out of the way as speedily as possible. "The fact is," said he, "the brethren want this sacred cause placed first upon the docket so that they may come to its consideration while they are still fresh and vigorous. They cannot bring themselves to attend to any other business until they know what provision has been made by the church during the past year for the comfort of those worn out in its service, and only when well assured for the coming year that in all the homes of their brethren, laid aside from their sacred work in sickness and want, the barrel of meal shall not waste nor the cruse of oil fail, can they with an easy conscience go on to the consideration of other matters upon the docket of the Assembly." Referring to the meeting of the last Assembly in Minneapolis, he said the interest in this sacred cause not only filled the Assembly itself, but overflowed into the elders' meeting, held every morning; and in many churches throughout the country during the past year there had been a substantial advance in the right direction. The time was when pastors (if indeed the subject of ministerial relief was ever alluded to at all in their sermons) spoke of it in a timid, hesitating, apologetic tone, very different from that in which they presented the claims of the other boards. Minis terial relief seemed too much like an appeal for charity on behalf of themselves or their brethren. But the better day has come, or at least it has dawned. Pastors and elders alike now recognize in the Board of Relief an agency by which the church does something more than take care of the poor. It is one of the most important agencies by which the church is discharging its duty to the ministry. Quoting from the sermon preached by Dr. Logan as the retiring moderator of the Synod of Pennsylvania, and recently issued as a tract by the Board of Publication, and also from the report of Dr. Pierson upon ministerial relief to the same synod, to show the prominent position now accorded to the work of the Board throughout the church, Dr. Cattell spoke of the effect of this forward movement upon their treasury. "Our report laid before you to-day," said he, "shows that we have had 562 families upon our roll the past year, an increase over the year before of fifty-five families to be provided for; but the collections in the churches and gifts from individuals sent to our treasury have enabled the Board to pay in full all the appropriations asked by the presbyterics, to provide all needful comforts for the aged and the invalids at the Ministers' House, and to report to the Assembly a good working balance. with which to begin the new year." He then spoke of the light and joy that this report would bring those worn-out servants of the church who had wrought faithfully in their years of health and strength, many of them on mission fields at home and abroad, and some for more than half a century. Now, when their "only service is to stand and wait," they will rejoice and give thanks to know they are not to be forgotten in the swift advance of the church militant upon new and widening fields of contest and triumph. The past year proves that the Presbyterian Church can carry on, even with greater efficiency, its grand and glori ous missionary work, and at the same time keep the wolf of hard and cruel want from the humble homes of its worn-out veterans. Never have the contributions to the mission boards been so great as during this very year, when the contributions for ministerial relief have exceeded those of any previous year. Referring to the "good working balance” in their treasury, which the Board had reported to the Assembly, Dr. Cattell spoke of their solicitude lest it should possibly induce some relaxation of effort on behalf of this sacred cause. He assured them this balance would all be needed before the summer months were over, even upon the present scale of appropriations. "And are we never," he asked, "to make any advance upon this scale? Shall the Presbyterian Church always be satisfied with an average appropriation of less than $200 to each family upon the roll of its Board of Relief?" He then referred at some length and with much feeling to the view of the Board of Relief-not so prevalent as formerly, but unhappily still widely held—that regards it merely as the agency by which the church distributes alms to the poor. As a necessary consequence of this view, appeals on behalf of the treasury of the Board are made exclusively to that sympathy with the poor and needy which is natural to the heart of man, and which the religion of Christ quickens and elevates. Such appeals undoubtedly have their place in stimulating the interest of God's people in the sacred work of this Board. It ought to be known, and widely known, that there is hard and cruel want in many of the homes for which he was pleading-these darkened homes of scholarly men and of cultured, refined women, who have known happier days, the memory of which sharpens the agony with which, on sick beds or bending beneath the burden of years, they look forward to the morrow which may bring with it no bread. Many sad letters came to him, written as though the pen trickled with tears and hearts' blood. Some of these he had printed, many more and still sadder ones he had felt were too pitiful to be spread before the church even with the writer's name withheld; and brethren who thought themselves well informed on this matter had told him that some of the statements in these printed letters seemed to them almost incredible. 66 "But," added he, "they were faithfully transcribed from the tear-blotted pages. Read these letters, brethren, to your people. The facts, painful and humiliating as they are, ought to be known. And if your people wonderingly ask whether these sad letters from the sick and aged servants of the church are not the morbid cry of those wasted by disease or in the second childhood of old age, read to them the letters I have printed from pastors who write about the cases which have come under their own observation-such as I read at the union meeting held in Chicago, an account of which you will find appended to our report this year to the Assembly. It should be known that among the six hundred families upon our roll there are many such sad and pitiful cases, and properly guarded they should be made the ground of appeals to God's people on behalf of the Board. But these appeals to our sympathies need to be carefully guarded, lest they confuse the duty of the church to Christ's poor with its duty to Christ's ministers." Enlarging upon this point the doctor said, "Ministerial relief should be put clearly and forcibly in its true light before the young and the old; and I urge you now (as I urged the brethren at the Assembly last year at Minneapolis and the year before at Cincinnati) to interest the children in the sacred work of this Board, in the hope that they, as well as grown people, will be made to understand clearly what duty of the church the Board of Ministerial Relief really represents. When you speak of the aged ministers let the children know, of course, that it is a beautiful trait in the young to respect the aged. You will do well to remind them of God's promises about this. When you speak of the ministers broken down in the midst of their years-whose pitiful cry comes to the church in such letters as I have read to you to-day-show the children how Christ-like it is to send some comforts to these sick beds and these darkened homes. They will grow up all the better men and women for this teaching. But do not stop here. Tell them why these ministers are poor; that in choosing the ministry they deliberately turned away from all the professions and businesses in which they might have made money. The ministry is a calling which, so far from leading to wealth or even to competence, brings ordinarily and with the closest economy only a bare living. There can of necessity be but little, if any, saving for sickness or old age. It is therefore but the paying of a just debt for the church, which has availed herself of the services of these faithful men at such inadequate salaries, to provide for them when they are sick and old, and for the families left destitute by their death; and little children, as well as grown people, can be made to understand that while sympathy with the poor is a good thing and ought to be cultivated, it is not the right thing for a man, or for a church, to pay a just debt out of mere sympathy with a creditor because he is poor!" Dr. Cattell expressed himself as feeling deeply upon this subject, and spoke of the natural shrinking of refined, cultured people from being regarded as objects of charity, as they too often were by those who thoughtlessly held the view that the Board of Relief was only a "charitable institution." He longed for the day when all upon the roll of the Board-those broken down in their prime, the widows and orphans, and |