THAT "OVERSUPPLY" AGAIN.
By W. N. G.
SOME time ago we mentioned the fact that in high religious circles the Christian ministry was being discussed as though it were an ordinary business profession, and that there was an oversupply of men engaged in the calling. The matter is still being agitated in that conception of ministerial work. The New York Observer recently contained an editorial on "Clerical Salaries," in which it was stated that the low average of such salaries is due in part to an oversupply of ministers. The sentiment called out from one of that journal's readers the following expression:— "I have claimed and written for the past fifteen years that there are too many ministers, and that the deceptive array of figures giving the number of churches and the number of ministers, does not answer the question. It is both a sin and a shame to deceive parents and candidates with the plea that more ministers are needed, thus leading the latter to spend some of the best years of their lives, only to be turned adrift at last. If I could tell what I know with regard to some splendid men, in character and ability, and a tithe of what they and their families have suffered, none but the most self-denying and entirely consecrated men would enter the ministry. The ministerial world needs to-day just as much of a high tariff and protection as does the political world, for those already in are suffering from an unrighteous and unchristian competition. Neither the board of education nor any minister has a right to ask any one or any church for aid, till the present condition of things is very materially changed. The General Assembly and the religious press should set themselves to remedy these evils, to remove these burdens and charges upon and against the church and ministry. It is not right to lay the blame upon the people for lack of liberality or spirituality, when the ministry itself and the General Assembly are at fault." When it comes to pass that the ministerial calling is regarded in such a mercenary light as this, is it any wonder that both the pulpit and the press are impelled to deplore the decline of spirituality in the churches? When the strife for place and emolument on the part of the ministry begets such a sentiment, is it any wonder that the pulpit is noted for a decline in spiritual power? And when that power, begotten only of the Spirit and the Word, has departed from the church, is it any wonder that the next resort is to the methods of civil politics? Such has ever been the result in the past, and a like cause must ever have a like effect. W. N. G.