tural, commercial and banking interests, in order to avoid discrimination. No praise too high can be awarded to the Reserve System for the quality of its economic technique since 1923, in using the great powers granted to it by Congress. The matter in question is only, "What shall be the standard of public policy they use in exercising their legal powers and managerial ability?” Congress has given to them as a System authority for concerted action which enables them, as has been explained, to control the value of gold and the general level of world prices, but Congress has laid down no policy except the vague "accommodation of business and commerce", thus putting on the Federal Reserve authorities the unfair responsibility of using their uninstructed and private judgment as to what is needed by, and desirable for, the country from time to time. This omission has already caused a division within the System, as to whether the rate of rediscount should be uniformly lowered in order to help Europe buy American farm exports, or kept at a higher rate to aid the bankers in making profits. Had Congress retained the clause of the first draft of the Federal Reserve bill, which would have instructed the System to maintain stability of the general price level, the wholesome effect of a definitely known policy might have been enjoyed. Even the extreme fluctuation of 1919 and 1920 might have been avoided by stopping inflation sooner and making the deflation less severe, just as afterward a price inflation was stopped in 1923 and a price deflation was controlled in 1925.

Having this great economic power of both inflation and deflation of prices, the public questions involved are: Shall stabilization of the value of gold be adopted as the legal standard? And, at what level of commodity prices in general shall the stabilization proceed? Since these are matters of opinion, I can only offer my own suggestion that stabilization of the value of gold should be made the legal aim of the System, and that the general price level should be maintained at about the level of 1923, when prices in general were sixty per cent. above the pre-war level. This would be fair to Europe, whose war debts were settled when prices stood at about that level, and would be fair for American manufacturers, public utilities, wage earners and farmers, who have made their readjustments largely on that level of prices.

This does not mean that stabilization of the value of gold would of itself change the spread between industrial prices and agricultural prices, or be a panacea for farm problems; but it would reduce the violence of future changes in the spread. A stable value of gold is merely stability of the average of all prices, and does not necessarily modify the ups and downs between particular prices which make up the average. The changes of particular prices have other causes peculiar to each commodity, and these changes are going on and will continue even if the average does not change. The tariff, debt payments, stabilization of manufactures, disorderly marketing in agriculture, as well as many other causes affecting the supply of, or the demand for, particular commodities, would continue to operate on particular prices irrespective of any gold stabilization. Each of these causes must be dealt with separately and on its own merits. Tariff reduction would help the farmers; war debt cancellation would help them; coöperative marketing would help; the McNary-Haugen bill would help; but all of these are inadequate because their results can be nullified unless the Federal Reserve System stabilizes the value of gold.

It is not only the spread between manufacturers' prices and agricultural prices that burdens the farmer; it is also the spread between his prices of former years and his prices now, resulting in an increase in the burden of taxes and debts occasioned by the fall in prices. The public debt, National, State and local, was about ten billion dollars in 1912, and sixty billion in 1922, an increase from $18 per capita to $203 per capita. The total private indebtedness is not as accurately known, but it has doubtless increased. Certainly farm indebtedness has greatly increased. The total American annual taxes-National, State and localwere about two billions before the war and are seven billions since the war. Taxes and interest on debts must be paid in gold or its equivalent, and, in order to get the gold, commodities must be sold. If the level of prices falls twenty per cent.,—that is, from 100 to 80,-then the quantity of commodities that must be sold for gold or gold credit, in order to pay a given amount of interest and taxes, must increase twenty-five per cent.—that is, from 80 to 100. The farmer's burden of taxes and debts has been increased

both by the larger amount of taxes and debts payable in money, and by the larger amount of commodities required to be sold in order to pay the same amount of taxes and debts.

In this respect the farmer suffers with others, but he is in a less advantageous position to adjust his affairs to meet the new conditions. The issue is a general one and resolves itself into the question, shall creditors obtain unearned income in terms of commodities, and producers suffer undeserved outgo in terms of commodities, by a mere rise in the value of gold, over which they have no control and over which only the Federal Reserve System has control? Or, reversely, shall creditors be made to lose and debtors be presented with a gain by a fall in the value of gold, over which they have no control? A stable value of gold, regulated by the Federal Reserve System is the most important of the many things required in preventing the ups and downs of production and employment in all lines and maintaining a better balance between manufactures and agriculture.

It is also necessary for the Federal Reserve System itself, as being the main thing which will keep underhand politics out of the Federal Reserve Board. For, if a public policy of price stabilization is acknowledged and required, then the criterion needed for selection of members of the Board is not their views on public policy, but their administrative ability.

THE JOY OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY

BY THE REV. DR. JAMES HENRY DARLINGTON

Bishop of Harrisburg

Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,

With the Cross of Jesus
Going on before.

THIS, the first quatrain of one of the Church's most familiar hymns, shows the Christian ideal which is for all, clerical and lay; the following and uplifting of Christ's Cross. If this is true of the laity, how much more should it express the ideas and ideals of the clergy, the chosen and ordained leaders of congregations of Christians!

If I should write, from forty-five years' experience in the ministry, after my ordination in 1882, that there are no crosses in that calling, I would not be telling the whole truth; and yet I wish to state, as the summing up of my life's experience in Holy Orders, that the joys of the ministry are much more than its sorrows, and that its happiness is a continual blessing. On the whole, the ministers I know are the most cheerful class in the community. The promise to Godliness, of long life in this world and eternal life hereafter, still holds good. If anyone doubts whether the life hereafter makes ample rewards for any privations here, it may not be possible to convince such a one; but as to the long earthly life of parsons, I can only refer fellow students of my old college of Princeton, to the Rev. Alfred B. Baker, D.D., ex-Rector of Trinity Church there, now nearly a centenarian, and call the attention of college men to the fact that at their college reunions, when the oldest living alumnus is called to rise, nine times out of ten it is a clergyman, and not a merchant, or soldier, or sailor, or any professional man.

My arguments range themselves in this order:

1-It is a mentally stimulating life. There is considerable study to be done, with varied reading; and a clergyman keeps up

with all secular knowledge, the leading reviews, as well as the strictly religious magazines and the contemporary developments in theology.

2-It is physically attractive, because a part of nearly every day should be given to calling in the homes of parishioners, which means the exercise of walking from house to house, climbing stairways to invalids and the aged, and in the country means owning and using a motor car, so that one is kept in God's outof-doors by the needs of his work.

3-It is spiritually helpful. A clergyman, by preaching sermons to increase the faith of others, takes these reasons to his own heart, and, with soul at rest, has few spiritual worries.

4-It is a prayerful life, in which the clergyman cultivates dependence upon his Divine Master and Best Friend, so that whatever discomfort may threaten, his mind and soul are not disturbed, and his nerves are at rest.

5-It is an independent life, when one can rise at any hour one pleases and retire at such time as he deems best; when days in the middle of the week can be used and taken for any desirable trip or purpose, and one is not confined to a small, stuffy office for eight hours, six days in each week.

6-It is an honored calling, so that a clergyman, his wife and his children are universally respected and esteemed, and great deference is paid to his words on civic and social affairs, as well as to his Sunday discourses.

7-It is a fairly well paid calling. In fact, the minimum salary in most dioceses is $2,000 or more, and a comfortable home; making the net salary about $3,000.

8-It has permanence of tenure. A clergyman in the Episcopal Church is called for life on good behavior and, under ordinary circumstances, with faithful work there is always a majority in each congregation who will vote to sustain the pastor against opposition, should any members of the vestry or other prominent individuals try to force him to resign. Very few clergymen are asked to resign unless there is good cause for the request. As to clergymen changing parishes often, almost all the removals of which I have been cognizant have been made by those who, on account of health or for some other reason, desired to go to