THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S DEARTH OF MINISTERS The Los Angeles Examiner recently printed an editorial that should make Christian people .think. In part, it says: “The average salary of ministers of religion in America is right now so far below what it costs the average head of a family to live that the young man who thinks of fitting himself for a life- work dare not plan to enter the minis try unless possessed of inherited means, of extraordinary unworldliness or of unusual fanaticism. “In this profession there are not enough young men to supply the vacan cies. And the consequent;» is that much of the talk which we hear about the decline of the church is merely the reflection of the low pay which is keep ing vital young men from undertaking a carder so fraught with the hazard of starvation. “Make the problem personal. Would you put four years of your life into a college training and two or three more years into a theological seminary train ing to fit yourself for a profession which expects you to be well dressed, urbane, eloquent, sympathetic, righteous in ex ample as well as in precept, and, if married, to display a genteel standard of family living, no matter how many your children, for less than $1000 a year? “Of each thousand youngsters start ing out in life probably fewer than five would of free choice pick such a pros pect of martyrdom. Five to the thou sand would not fill the requirements even if they all survived and made good. “Society needs doctors of character quite as much as it needs doctoring of bodies and of minds. “By its indifference to the minister’s income society is creating a dearth of good ministers, and consequently a starving of one of the most vital of the necessities of its true welfare. “We dare not persist in this unwise course.
879
GIVING ’TILL IT HURTS Somebody, some time started the unscriptural suggestion to “give until it hurts.” This never was, and is not now, a safe practice for Christian stew ardship. It hurts some people to give at all; it hurts some to give a little; it hurts some others to give a fairly decent sum; it almost kills others to give as much as the Jews did—ten per cent. But it is not a question of whether it hurts or not. Whether it hurts or whether it does not hurt should not be a consideration. Two men equally able may give $100 each to the missionary program, and it might hurt one and be a joy to the other. Yet it might be that neither of them were fulfilling their Christian obligation. The basis of stewardship and liberality for Christian men and women must be put on a higher plane. It must be based on the world’s great need and a man’s ability to give. Not until one faces the suffering and need of the world and then gives to the full measure of his ability has he fulfilled the claims of Christ upon his life.—Sel. A SCRIPTURAL NAME “What name do you wish to give the child?” asked a minister of a colored woman who had brought her baby to have it baptized. “I wants him to have de Scriptural name ‘Hallud’,” she replied. “Hallud? Why, where did you find that name in the Bible?” “Well, for de land’s sake! You a preacher what says yo’ prayers every day an’ doan know ‘Hallud be Thy name’!” An infirmity becomes doubly burden some when we give it a false interpreta tion. If I look upon my ailment as the stroke of an offended God, I wear it like the chains of a slave.
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs