Newspaper Page Text
20 TH
Ecclesiastic
TO ALL PRESBYTERIANS?AN APPEAL.
The undersigned most earnestly ask
help immediate help for our work at
Ricliwood. W. Va. The church building,
with all its furniture, has been destroyed
by fire. Insurance, $2,000. The congregation
is as willing as any ever was,
and has already heroically set to work
Btscuriiig miusn i[iiurns 111 me ruiumuiiiiy.
But a manse which had been bought before
the fire, and which is a necessity if
we are to have a minister at that point,
is yet to be paid for, and the efficient
pastor must also be supported.
A time of calamity is a time for
sympathetic and prompt co-operation.
Shall the world help when disaster
comes to one of its parts, and the Church
not show even greater alacrity in hurrying
forward its aid to one of its suffering
congregations?
This appeal is to every minister and
every church in the Synod of Virginia.
Let the money be sent to Rev. R. S.
Eskridge, Richwood, Nicholas Co., West
Virginia, who will make acknowledgment
through our Church papers. The Richwood
church is vital to our interests in
all that region.
J. E. Booker, Supt. H. M. Synod of
Va.; Ben Harrop, Chm. H. M. Gre(fnbrler
Presby tery; C. R. Lacy, Supt. H.
M. Greenbrier Presbytery; R. S. Eskridge,
pastor Richwood church; E. Daniel.
A RESTING PLACE FOR OUR MIN%
ISTERS.
By Rev. Ivanhoe Robertson.
In the Southeastern portion of one of
the South Atlantic States there was a
Scotch-Irish settlement of Presbyterians.
If one of their number became sick they
ministered to him, and provided for his
comfort. By common consent on the
day appointed they assembled at his
home, with their teams, bringing their
dinners with them, and worked out his
crop for him, and thus kept it worked
out as long as he was sick. They called
this "neighborly."
"My salary is inadequate to my needs."
(Alas! how many such.) "1 shall be
compelled to change my field of labor. I
need rest, but I am unable to take it."
ouius annual iu mtfst; were spoKCIl UV
ono of our young ministers to a brother
minister. He changed liis field of
labor, entered upon a new work, after
a brief pastorate was taken ill and died.
Brethren! wo need a "Resting Place"
for our ministers; we need a "Samaritan
Inn." Those who are well may not feel
this need; those who have farms to
resort to may not feel this need; thoSe
who have means to seek and patronise
iiuuii.ii u niii w ma/ nut. icui inis neea:
but the poor, overworked, overburdened,
sick brother will welcome it as the
weary, thirsty traveler welcomes the
oasis in the dreary desert. The Priests
and Levltes could, and In my judgment
should, provide and maintain this
"Samaritan Inn" for their disabled
brethren. The ministers, elders and
deacons should be a Scotch-Irish com
y
E PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOU
munity to their sick and wornout
tellows.
A rest and water cure, near some
good spring, in a healtby-all-the-yearround
climate, with sufficient acreage for
buildings, farming and all kinds of out
door exercise would be a long step in
the right direction toward securing the
end contemplated. Such an institution
could be easily financed if the interest
v?? no imiuuii 111CUU3 COU1U OG OtlCO
awakened.
If the sixteen hundred and twenty-five
ministers, the ten thousand one hundred
and forty elders, and the .nine thousand
three hundred and ninety-three deacons
in our Assembly would subscribe for one
share of stock each in the institution at
$100 per share, (payable ten dollars
cash and the balance in five dollar,
monthly payments), there would be
lealized $2,115,800. if one-half of them
subscribed on the same bbsis, there
would be realized $1,057,900. If one
fourth of them subscribed on the same
basis there would be realized $528,950.
If the ministers alone subscribed there
would be realized $162,500. If one half
of the ministers subscribed there would
be realized $Sl,250. Thus a definite
amount could bo obtained for the
purchase of the site, the erection of the
buildings and the equipment of the
plant, etc. One fourth of the amount
thus raised should be held as the
nucleus of a reserve, or endowment
fund. If each subscriber would pay two
dollars per month for the current expenses
of the institution, which should
entitle him to one month's free treatment,
and rest each year, there would he a
permanent and, with the supplement that
the good Samaritans would make, an
adequate source of support.
The free treatment should be extended
first to the subscribers and then to as
many others as the means and capacity
of the institution will admit. If one of
the subscriber's time needed to be extended
on account of protracted sickness
it could easily be done by each other
subscriber giving one or two days, or
even a week or more if there was need.
On the same principle those who are
not subscribers could be cared for.
But those who need the institution
most are least able to contribute to it.
Then let those who are more able do so
for them, "The multitude of them that
believed were of one heart and one soul;
Neither said any of them that aught of
the things which he possessed was his
own; but they had all things in common."
"Bear ye one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ."
But this is not a good time for it? The
same difficulty will confront us later and
we will have lost all the time that we
linvh WQHA/1 ?i i .
..ruui suares nave aireaciy
been, verbally, subscribed at one hundred
dollars per share. One layman
voluntarily said, "I would give money
lo such an institution." One minister
said "I would rather give a hundred
dollars to it than anything else -I
know of." One donation has already been
received, which, I trust, is the foundation
stone of an institution where our
ministers may have an outing at a
minimum cost.; where those who are
TH. March 3, 1909.
weary may rest; where the sick may be
restored to health again; and where,
ultimately, our aged ministers may have
a cottage home where they may spend
their declining years in peace.
If your heart makes you willing to
help in this great work, either by subscription
on the basis indicated above,
or bv donation, plases advise me at your
earliest convenience at Farmville, Va.
If we go up to the Assembly with something
definite and encouraging, if it does
not adopt the move, it will, I believe,
heartily endorse it; and. Ministerial
Relief will say, Amen!
"THE 'ELECT INFANT' QUESTION."
The writer has read and re-read the
editorial in the Presbyterian of the South
(February 10) under the above caption
with some surprise.
The paragraph of the Confession of
Faith under the discussion is Chap. X. .
Sec. If I, as follows: "Elect infants dying
in infancy are regenerated and saved
by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh
when and where and how he plea3eth.
So also are all other elect persons,
who are incapable of being outwardly
called by the ministry of the word."
The position of the editorial is that
while in making a Confession of Faith,
we are justified in putting into it those
truths which are categorically stated In
God's woVd and those which come to us
by necessary inference from it, "our
belief that all incapables are included
in the number of the elect" "is not a 'necessary'
inference from any passage of
ScripHtre and is not a matter for insertion
in our standards."
These words present the crux of the
argument for the editorial position and
here it is that I, and many others, take
issue. He says, there is not a single
text of Scripture from which the "necessary"
inference can be drawn that all
infants, dying in infancy, are saved. 1
assert that there are many such texts.
In maintaining this position, I point
first, to 1 John 4: 8, "God Is Love," and
ask my readers to pause, ponder the
meaning of these three words and then
ask themselves the question; if the very
essence of the Divine nature Is "love."
whether It Is not a good and "necessarv"
inference from 11lls postulate that all
Infants dying In infancy, are "elect" and
that not one of them from the foundation
of the world has over been consigned
to the blackness of darkness forever
and ever. Any contrary inference
seems to me an insult to the Divine being;?the
ground of unbelief and all manner
of evil.
2. John 3: 16 and 1 Timothy 1: 15. If
"God so loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whosoever be
nevetn on Him should not perish but
have eternal life," is it too much to conclude
as a "necessary" Inference that
all "infants, dying in infancy"?none of
whom have been guilty of overt tranrgression?are
redeemed to the peacespeaking
blood of Jesus and at death
aVe taken up te their Fath<*r's house In
heaven? Or, if "faithful is the saying
and worthy of all acceptation that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners,"?even
the chief of sinner3?can it
be considered a stretch of faith to as