No Preacher Can Lead an Honest Life.—
By Editor
Such is the statement of the Rev. E. H. Carrick, who has just resigned from the North Lawrence Christian Church of Kansas. He has accepted a job with the Lawrence City Railway Company as a conductor. He declares that the criticisms, the meddling, the penurious way that he is treated by his congregation, make it impossible for a pastor to have any kind of freedom in his work. He feels now that he is earning an honest living and nobody can criticize him. From other incidents of which this is a sample, it seems that there are many who feel just as Mr. Carrick does. This in part is owing to the wrong system of supporting ministers. We do not believe that it was God's design that a minister should settle down over a church as his field and act as proxy for the church in godliness, missionary work, and Christian living. A minister ought to be absolutely independent of the church where he labors, so that he could speak God's message whether they would hear or whether they would forbear. The Bible system of the support of the ministry, the tithing system, properly administered, does not place a minister in dependence upon any one church. He is not dependent for his salary upon the congregation to which he preaches. He is not placed in fear of his family's coming to want, on the one hand, or of offending his congregation, on the other. He can preach God's message and be free, and certainly every minister ought to be free.