TO THE COMMITTEES FOR THE SUPPLY OF PULPITS IN VACANT PARISHES. "THE Committee on the Supply of Pulpits" feel that the present is a fitting time to make a suggestion to the Committee of Parishes, which they hope need only be made to meet their hearty approval and acceptance. The rates paid for the transient supply of pulpits, although higher than some years ago, are still ruinously low. It is impossible for even an unmarried man to make a decent living out of them, even had he no travelling expenses to deduct; while those travelling expenses often do not leave him for his week's income so much per day as the most ordinary mechanic. It once chanced to a member of this committee to have thirty-seven cents left for a week's support, after deducting his necessary travelling expenses, and that only because a friend paid for his dinner on his return. The period that a parish is living "by supply" is often looked upon as a season for husbanding resources, and reducing the cost of expenses. It seems a deliberate calculation with some, who do not appear over-desirous of settling" again on that account. This, like many other economies, is no economy at all, as it strikes at the best interest and vigor of the society. 66 The committee would therefore recommend, 1. A general increase in the rate of transient supply. 2. They would also suggest, that, in every case, the travelling expenses to and from be added. This seems to be demanded, 1. By the increase in the cost of living. 2. By the desirableness of uniformity; some parishes already having established this rule, and they always having naturally the preference with candidates. 3. By the fact that the poor pay is one of the great causes of the growing amount of poor preach, of which parishes so much complain. If the wage is low, the work will be poor. The good workman will be driven from that pursuit which refuses an adequate support. 4. By the fact that even this increase does not bring the cost to the parish to more than a half or two-thirds of the cost of a settled ministry. 5. By the fact that this great work of the ministry, if it be worth any thing, is worth a decent support to its servants; and, constituted as man is, there is nothing that so tests his regard for a thing as the amount he will pay for it. It is an evidence of "low state of the Church" when parishes stint and scrimp the pay of those who are its servants. If all the facts were made public, which might easily be culled out from the personal experience of one and another, they would surprise, perhaps appall, many men who have no idea how great is the injustice and the actual suffering entailed upon and quietly borne by clergymen, whose misfortune it is to be "candidates," who carry away from their Sunday's work a collapsed pocket and a discouraged soul. Friends! one way to rouse yourselves, and to revive the ministry, is to be liberal in your payments; not to see how much you can save, how little you can give, but to "give to the Lord your God that which costs you something;" remembering that even the transient laborer "is worthy of his hire." 66 J. F. W. WARE. R. P. STEBBINS. INTELLIGENCE. Rev. CHARLES W. BUCK, a graduate of the Meadville Theological School in the class of 1862, was installed as pastor of the Society in Fall River, Mass., on Thursday, Dec. 31. The order of services was as follows: Organ voluntary; anthem; invocation, by Rev. Cortland Y. De Normandie, of Fairhaven; reading of the Scriptures, by Rev. Henry C. Badger, of New Bedford; hymn; sermon, by Rev. James Freeman Clarke, D.D., of Boston; hymn; installing prayer, by Rev. Stephen G. Bulfinch, of Boston; response, by the choir; address to the people, by Rev. John F. W. Ware, of Cambridgeport; prayer, by Rev. Charles H. Brigham, of Taunton; doxology; benediction, by the pastor. Rev. THOMAS D. HOWARD has been appointed chaplain of the Seventeenth Regiment Infantry, Corps d'Afrique, now forming in Louisiana. Rev. D. C. TOMLINSON has made a temporary engagement with the united Universalist and Unitarian societies at East Lexington, Mass. Rev. THOMAS J. MUMFORD has accepted the call from the Third Religious Society, Dorchester, Mass. Rev. THOMAS T. STONE, of Bolton, Mass., has accepted an invitation to continue the charge of the society in Brooklyn, Conn., until December next. Mr. DAVID H. MONTGOMERY, a graduate of the Cambridge Divinity School in the last class, has accepted a call from the society in South Danvers, Mass. Rev. DEXTER CLAPP has resigned the charge of the East Society, Salem, on account of ill health. Rev. Dr. OSGOOD'S Society, New York, have sold their church-edifice on Broadway, and purchased a lot on the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Park Avenue. They have appointed a Building Committee, and will probably go on at once with the new edifice. 1863. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Dec. 30. From Third Parish, Dorchester, for Monthly Jour nals $12.00 12.00 4.75 Jan. 16. From the following persons, towards support of Mr. A. A. Low, Brooklyn, N.Y.. $100.00 E. H. R. Lyman, Josiah O. Low, E. S. Mills, Mary P. Low, Daniel Low, Staten Island H. B. Cromwell, Staten Island Lucius Tuckerman, Staten Island, 25.00 Mrs. L. J. Wyeth, New York Jan. 20. From Miss J. Pomeroy, as fourth payment on life F. E. Abbot and C. Du Bois, to make them- First Society, Salem, for Monthly Journals Society in Fairhaven, for Monthly Journals, Rev. Ed. I. Galvin, Emmons Twichell, Otis "a friend to the cause," for Army Fund Colburn Ellis, Mrs. Theodore Gay, Mrs. First Society, Baltimore, Md., for Monthly E. G. French, for Army Fund 26. Rev. D. C. M'Daniel and E. G. French, to For Monthly Journals 10.00 5.00 30.00 6.00 4.00 22.00 4.00 2.00 $13.35 10.00 23.35 |