"Well, gentlemen," said I, "I will not be a party to getting a minister here on-excuse the term,—false pretences; on the assurance that we can pay him $1,500 a year when it is a hard matter to pay him $1,200. There are ten of us here. I will put my name down now for $30, if the rest will do the same. If the Lord sends the $300, or if the ladies raise it by a fair, or if Mr. Wheaton gets up a concert, or the summer boarders come to our rescue, we shall have nothing to pay. If none of these things happen, the minister will not have it all to lose."
The matter was eventually settled in that way. We raised a contingent fund of $250 then and there, which we have since made up to $400. So that now we can offer $1,500 a year with a clear conscience.
As a lawyer I have had some experience dealing with corporations. And I record my deliberate conviction here that of all corporations church corporations are financially the worst; the most loose and dilatory and unconsciously dishonest. I record it as my deliberate conviction, having had some opportunities for knowing, that in the Calvinistic church, of the others I don't pretend to know anything, on the average not one half the ministry get their meagre salaries promptly. This injustice is the greatest and most scandalous feature in the treatment to which the churches subject their ministers. That ministers are subjected to hardships is a matter of no consequence. So are other people. It is the injustice, the absolute and indefensible injustice, the promising to pay their meagre salaries and then not paying even those-the obtaining of their services under false pretences-that I complain of. If I were a minister I never would accept a call without knowing thoroughly the income and the expenditure of the church.
As I write there lies before me a letter from my late pastor. He wants to borrow $300 for a few weeks. His Board of Trustees are thus much behind-hand in the first quarter's payment. He has not the means to pay his rent. The duty of the Board in such a case is very evident. The very least they can do is to share in providing temporarily for the exigency. The very most which a mean Board could do would be to ask the minister to unite with them in paying up the deficiency. In fact, he who is least able to do it has to carry it all. Nobody else will trust the church. He has to trust it for hundreds of dollars. And then when his grocer and his landlord and his tailor go unpaid, men shrug their shoulders and say, pityingly, "Oh! he's a minister, he is not trained to business habits." And the world looks on in wonder and in silent contempt to see the Christian Church carrying on its business in a manner the flagrant dishonesty of which would close the doors of any bank, deprive any insurance company of its charter, and drive any broker in Wall street from the Brokers' Board.
Jennie says this last is pretty sharp writing; and she shakes her head over it. But it is time, and I decline to cancel it.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Our Donation Party—by Jane Laicus.
MY husband wants me to write an account of the donation we gave our new minister. He wants it to put in his book.
"Why, John," said I, "I can't write anything for a book. I never wrote anything for print in my life. You mustn't think I am clever because you are."
"My dear Jennie," said he, "there is no magic in print. Write just such an account as you wrote your mother. If you had that letter you could not do better than give me that to put in."