A LIVELY LETTER.

We think the following lively letter from one of the "honorable women" of whom there are not a few will interest our readers. We were happy to be able to answer that the good elder was mistaken:

, OHIO, September 23, 1887. DEAR SIR:-Our Presbyterian church here seems to be going backward instead of the way a part of us at least would like to have it go. We have had a railroad here two or three years, which is a great help in many ways, but runs so near our church as to be very annoying. At Wednesday night prayer-meetings frequently two trains come past. Everything might as well be stopped, and often is, as nothing can be heard. At service on Sabbath morning the train always comes through, and generally during sermon. There is no alternative but for minister and congregation to wait -often just spoils something which might have been quite impressive. If you have never been in such a place, it is impossible to make you understand just how annoying it is.

Perhaps you begin to wonder why I am telling you this. Am "only a woman too, not an officer. Will try to explain. A very few of the members have been talking of selling the church. More than a year ago succeeded in getting a congregational meeting where it was declared the church was no longer suitable for church purposes. A part of the members have been looking up all sorts of excuses-" do not want to sell it;" "the train don't bother us;" "it is good enough as it is;" "where is the money to come from?" (Should have told you that we few are "crazy" enough to want to build another church and parsonage too.) But our last blow was the hardest! 'You cannot sell the church without (the Board helped build the church) paying the money, with interest for all these years, back to the Board." Of course we could not do what we would like with what would be left. I told them I could not see why that should be so provided. The money would be used to build another church. I think from what one of the elders said, he had written to you about it some time ago and had received such an answer as that. I thought perhaps he did not explain it well. He gave me your address, after I told him I would write myself and see if things could not be brighter. We certainly could not afford to pay back either principal or interest. Some of us are in hopes we could get $3000 for the church property. There are almost two lots, and being so near the

And we

railroad makes them more valuable. know of a property which would make a good parsonage, with all necessary out-buildings, with room enough for church, which could be bought for $2300, which would leave us with $700 to begin another church without any subscription. Would the Board help toward building another church? We would like a better one than the one we have, i. e., more modern, better conveniences for heating (furnace instead of stoves). Those who sit near the stoves are too warm, others not warm enough. Please let me know as soon as you can conveniently all the good news you may have. Hoping it may be all I would love to hear, I am, Yours respectfully,

MRS.

LIFTING TO THE UTMOST.

We publish the following letter as a type of many that we receive that show very plainly that a little congregation is lifting to the utmost, and counting with anxious eye every penny upon which it can rely.

The deduction for insurance to which this good brother refers would amount to just six dollars. The request was gladly complied with.

CALIFORNIA, September 14, 1887.

REV. E. N. WHITE, D.D.

MY DEAR BROTHER:-Expecting the completion of our chapel about the 25th of this month, I wrote you for "the necessary papers," that our trustees might fill them out and forward to you. Have not yet received them. But I have received your report to the last Assembly. Your rules show that five years' premium on policy of insurance are to be deducted from the amount granted. Alas for us! "It is the last ounce that breaks the camel's back." Our improvements (completing the chapel) will cost not far from $600.

We applied to you for $500 aid, putting the amount at lowest figure.

We did not put it at $600 so as to provide for a cutting down on your part; but we put it at what we felt we actually needed. Great was our disappointment that only $400 was pledged. I have moved heaven and earth to make up the deficit. Only after earnest appeals (too many to mention) to personal friends have I secured barely enough. Have relied on every cent of the $400 pledged in order to meet

of worldly distinction were in bright array before them, when earthly fame and wealth, or at least competence, held forth fair promises to those who sought them, and when the avenues leading to such prizes seemed open, they deliberately turned from them all, and, constrained by the love of Christ, devoted their lives to his service and to the service of his church. This choice they made, though, in most cases, foreseeing that it involved a life of self-denial, of privation to them and to their families, a life of poorlyrecompensed labor, a life of living not unto themselves, but as the loving Saviour lived, a life of ministry to the highest welfare of others. They are men to whom neither the world nor the church has given much, but who have given very much to the world and to the church alike by their instruction and by their example. Many of them, most of them, have through long years been faithful ambassadors of Christ, pointing ever to the way of life, warning and entreating men to repent. Their teachings and their influence have been powerful in preserving the purity of our churches, in elevating the standard of piety, and in stimulating Christians to a more Christ-like life. They have baptized the children of the church, married the sons and the daughters, buried the dead, carried sympathy and consolation to the bereaved, and in numerous instances have saved the young from going astray, and led them to seek and find that better part which can never be taken from them. Such has been the labor of their lives, continued generally from early manhood until disease or old age has laid them aside. Are they not worthy of the appellative "honorably retired"? Are they not worthy of the gratitude and needed assistance of all who bear the name of Christians, yea, of all who, though not Christians, have either themselves or in their families been benefited by their self denying labors? Are they not peculiarly of those who in the last great trial day will be recognized by the righteous Judge as his brethren relieved or neglected in their time of necessity?

Most of them greatly need assistance. The scanty support which they have re

ceived from the churches to which they have ministered has not enabled them to make provision for ruined health or for the needs of old age, or for the comfort of the wives who have sympathized with them in all their labors and self-denials. They cannot help themselves. To help them is not charity; it is payment of a debt due to them from every Christian man and woman. It is well to look at the magnitude of the claim. I find, in looking over the minutes of the last General Assembly, that of the 5654 Presbyterian ministers of our church 340 are honorably retired from the active duties of the ministry-retired not from their own choice, but because of inability resulting from extreme old age or hopeless physical prostration. The proportion is not large-about one in seventeen-but the aggregate includes a vast amount of suffering. Of this the church has not been entirely unmindful. Something has been done to relieve the suffering. Yet hitherto it has been miserably inadequate. We propose to celebrate next spring the one hundredth anniversary of the formation of the General Assembly-unitedly to offer thanksgiving to the great Head of the church for the blessings bestowed upon the church in all its history. We propose to show the sincerity of our thankfulness by contributing the sum of one million dollars to constitute a permanent fund to secure reasonable appropriations for the comfort of these servants of the church. This has been approved by the Assembly. Will the effort to raise this fund be successful? If it shall be, it will bring joy and gladness to the hearts of all these honorably-retired ministers and their families, and also to the hearts of those Christian men and women who shall aid in accomplishing it. It will do much more: it will encourage young men, greatly needed in the ministry of the church, to give themselves to it unhesitatingly. Very many bright young men, energetic, hopeful and truly Christian, are the sons of Presbyterian ministers, some the grandsons of these honorably retired. They have been witnesses of the privations of their fathers and mothers or of these retired grandfathers. At

their entrance upon active life, and when determining what lines of life they will adopt, they naturally shrink from encountering the suffering which in too many cases attends ministerial life, and especially when sickness or old age overtakes it. The apprehension of it for themselves and those whom they may love has turned good men away in sorrow to other pursuits, and the church is suffering thereby. Much of this apprehension will be removed if permanent provision shall be made such as is now proposed. I believe that such provision will be made. Surely followers of the Lord Jesus. will not withhold from his ministering servants, his brethren, the helping hand.

WASHINGTON, D. C., October 20, 1887.

W. STRONG.

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA,
EXECUTIVE CHAMBER,

HARRISBURG, October 17, 1887. MY DEAR DR. NELSON:-I read at the time it was published, and have since carefully re-read, your article in the May number of THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD, entitled "Honorably Retired." The scheme therein outlined meets my hearty approval. In my judgment some provision should be made for any minister of the gospel to whose name a presbytery, after careful consideration, will append the honorable title of "H. R.” In retiring the officers of our army and navy, and the judges of our federal courts, at a certain fixed age, the government does not inquire whether or not they have the means of livelihood. The fact of their being in commission at the time entitles them to retirement upon the pay and allowances provided for officers of their rank. Why should not faithful servants of the church, who have given their lives to its ministry, be entitled, when age and disability come on, to a fixed and regular stipend or pension, regardless of the fact of such penury and poverty as will entitle them to relief, so called? Such provision would undoubtedly dignify the whole scheme of ministerial relief and would lift above the stigma of pauperism all who are its beneficiaries. Some of the most honored

names of living officers of the army and navy, and of judges of our Supreme Court, are those of men who have been retired after years of active and honorable service. Whilst occupying official place they have been prevented by the very nature of their duties from engaging in the pursuits of life which ordinarily yield a competence for old age, and the government has therefore wisely, and justly I think, provided for them whether they need such provision or not: wisely, because they are thereby enabled to devote all their energies of body and mind to the work in which they are engaged, before old age comes; and justly, because after such service the government, having used the best of their years, cannot righteously allow them to retire from its service without adequate provision for the years which are necessarily unproductive. If this be true. of those in secular life, with how much greater force may it be urged in the case of those who, by the very nature of their call ing, are prohibited from engaging in active and remunerative business of any kind!

If the success of the proposition to raise a million for the endowment of our Board of Relief could by any possibility cut the Board off from the active sympathy of the church, and relieve it from the necessity of calling upon the church continually for its contributions for this purpose, it would seem to me to be a great calamity, and should hardly meet the approval of our people; but the fact is that such an endowment would serve simply as the balance-wheel to the machinery of the Board, which would enable it to distribute its bounty regularly and systematically, whether the contributions. of the church came up to the full amount required for its annual wants or not. The church should be kept, it seems to me, in the closest and most sympathetic contact with this work of relief, and the grand project which has received the sanction of the General Assembly should unite our people in the most cordial and earnest efforts to secure its entire success during this centennial year.

Very cordially yours,

JAMES A. BEAVER.

A BEAUTIFUL CHARACTER. Less than twenty years ago there was in attendance at the regular meetings of his presbytery a member over ninety years of age, whose venerable presence was ever welcomed by his co-presbyters. He had long secured their love and admiration by his many years of self-sacrificing and successful labors in the cause of Christ. A member of his presbytery described him as a man that would attract attention anywhere. His very look was apostolic. He was the gentlest of gentlemen. No provocation was sufficient to induce him to utter a harsh word, or pronounce a severe opinion. His affection for the church shone out in all his conversation. His distinguishing characteristics were patience, cheerfulness, lovingness, spirituality and faith." He was in the line of the gospel ministry for four generations, and had also married the daughter of a clergyman and thus obtained a model wife, to whose prudence and devoted piety he attributed the most of his success in his pastoral relations. There was a rare combination of gentleness, prudence and energy in this beloved man. His ministry extended over a period of sixty-eight years, and was invariably successful in every enterprise he undertook. He was favored with many revivals of religion, and as a result of one of these upwards of two hundred persons were hopefully converted. On another occasion, having been pleasantly settled for thirteen years in a harmonious congregation, he felt it his duty to accept a call to a church then in a distracted condition. Against this change the members of the church he was about to leave earnestly remonstrated. But he felt it his duty to make an effort to save the distracted congregation, and he went. The sequel proved his judgment was correct, for in a few months harmony was restored to the congregation. A revival of religion soon followed, and upwards of seventy converts were added to the church. He was

He was regarded as a MODEL PASTOR, and from the day of his ordination, when only twenty-three years old, until worn down by old age and dimness of sight, was never left without pastoral employment; and when no longer able to preach, he took charge of a Bible class and continued to teach until near the close of life. While in pastoral charge he generally preached three times every Sabbath, and frequently superintended his Sabbath-school. Although so industrious in the work of the church, he seems to have been indifferent about his own secular interest, for at no time did his salary exceed five hundred dollars per annum, and he often relinquished some of that amount when he heard that some of his parishioners were too poor to pay their subscriptions. As a consequence he had no opportunity to secure a competence for old age. Still, when by reason of infirmity he could no longer provide for himself, he trusted in God to supply everything needed, and was not disappointed, for assistance soon came, not from any one particular congregation, but from the heartfelt generosity of the whole denomination whose churches he had loved so well and so successfully nourished for more than sixty years. In the organization of the MINISTERIAL RELIEF FUND the church has shown its grateful acknowledgment for such valuable service as that rendered by our venerable friend, and it was under the care of this fund he was cordially received when over eighty-two years old, and tenderly provided for until his ninety-third year, when he calmly departed from this world to go and "be ever with the Lord." His last words, uttered in a low whisper, were— "ALMOST HOME!"

September, 1887.

CHARLES BROWN.