Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

2G TH Ecclesiastical ONE WAY OF BEING GOD'S MINISTER. Hon. Alpheus Hardy, the liberal Christian. who educated the great Japanese Christian, Joseph Hardy Neesinia, once told this thrilling story of his experience : "I am not a college man, and it was the bitter disappointment of my life that 1 could not be. I wanted to go to college and become a minister; went to Philips Academy to fit. My health broke down, and. in spite of my determined hope of being able to go on, at last the truth was forced on me that I could not. "To tell my disappointment is impossible. It seemed as' if all my hope and purpose m life were defeated. ,'I can not be God's minister,' was the sentence that kept rolling through my mind. "When that fact at last became certain to me. one morning?alone in my room?my distress was so great that 1 threw myself flat on the floor. The voiceless cry of my soui was, 'O God, I can not be thy minister!' Then there came to me, as I lay, a vision, a new hope, a perception that I could serve God in business with the same devotion as in preaching, and that, to make money for God might be my sacred calling. The vision of this service and its nature as a sacred ministry was so clear and joyous that 1 rose to my feet, and with new hope in my heart, exclaimed aloud, 'O God, 1 can be thy minister! I will go back to Boston. I will make money for God, and that shr.ll be my ministry.' "From that time I have felt myself as much appointed and ordained to make money for God as if 1 had been permitted to carry out my own plan and been ordained to preach the gospel. I am God's man, and the ministry to which God called me is to make and administer money for him, and 1 consider myself responsible to discharge this ministry and to give account ol it to him." Perhaps you have had a desire to preach the gospel. Regret may (111 your heart that you did not give your liie to that high calling. It may be too late now for you to change your course. Why not help some worthy young man Into the ministry? The demand for consecrated, able ministers was never so great, the fields were liever more inviting nor more promising of immediate returns. The Savior said, "Say not ye there are yet four months and then cometh harvest! Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and lork on the fields; for tViA.> nt./> urUIf/v nUnn/i.f f/v lw>...rAA? ?? mcjr ai c nunc aucauj' iu uai ?coi. The Presbyterian Church has always and rightly demanded a high grade education for her ministry. The cost of a four years' course in college and three years in the theological seminary is great, and many of the candidates come from homes of limited means. The Committee of Education for the Ministry is the agency of the church for enlisting candidates and aiding worthy men of small means, who actually need assistance, recommended by the Presbyteries, through a full course of preparation for the ministry. r r EB PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOUT For further information, address Rev. Henry H. Sweets, Secretary of the Executive Committee of Ministerial Education and Relief of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, 122 Fourth avenue, Louisville, Ky. TO THE SYNOD OF VIRGINIA. Let me say a word in behalf of this, your institution. Many of you. 1 ant persuaded, are not acquainted with it?The Presbyterian Orphans' Home. It ' has been in operation about seven years, and in that time a great many of the churches have not contributed a cent toward its support. The Presbyterians of the Synod of Virginia, in session assembled. ,bv the vote of Ihoir niiniotorn and elders, solemnly authorized the establishment of this Home for the fatherless and homeless. Now, one would naturally suppose two things: First, that the cause of the orphan would be a perpetual appeal to our Christian people, needing not to be pressed, to be remembered; and second, that the ministers and elders of the Synod would, as honorable men, have felt that they and their people should, share and share, bear this self-imposed burden. Yet, as a matter of fact, pastors and sessions of many of our largest churches have refused to allow the needo nt ?htu Home to be set before their congregations! This seems strange for the servants of that God who says concerning himself, "A Judge of the fatherless and the Husband of the widow, is God in his holy habitation," and who defines "pure religion and undefiled" as "visiting the fatherless and the widow in their affliction." From one of our Presbyteries I have not received a contribution from a church or Sunday school. From one of the largest and richest Presbyteries only three churches and three Sundav schools have sont a nnn. trihution. Another Presbytery, one-third larger in number, is represented by only three churches and perhaps six Sunday schools. So near to the close of the ecclesiastical year, this would seem to indicate that there is alarming and unaccountable indifference on the part of pastors and sessions as to the claims of this l-Iome. May I not again urge the delinquent churches to attend to this cause at once? Surely, if only the opportunity is given, the people will give to the fatherless and the homeless. One of our most prominent pastors wrote, "Our session has concluded to allow you to present the cause of the orphanage." That sounds like it was a concession after a struggle. I hope it was not; but it does seem to me when God reveals his attitude tnmani helpless and fatherless, that the church ought to be heartily in line with him. It would be interesting to know just what is the attitude of many of our ministers toward the Synod's orphanage. A prominent elder lately wrote: "If the pastors of the Synod will present this cause, as they should, to their congregations, there will be ample funds supplied the orphanage. I am perfectly confident of this. If your orphans suffer it will be due to ministerial neglect." And this witness saith true. Brethren, our revenues have greatly H. March 31, 1909. diminished, our supplies have run low, our farm expenditure is greatly increased .at this season. The case i3 with you. But a last word: A few weeks ago a gentleman in New York wrote me that he would pay the tenth part of our debt of $8,000 if the Church will raise the balance by the first of January, 1910. Ought not the Presbyteries, at their spring meetings, to take active tneas uifs 10 meet inis generous offer, and put this Home on its feet? Yours in the work, J. C. Painter, Act. Supt. A SUNDAY SCHOOL THAT HAS A Children's Day Every Month. Let me tell the children and everybody else who Is gping to have a part in the Children's Day collection for our Industrial School for Hoys in Mexico, about a Sunday school that has a children's day every month. Well, they don't call it by that name, but the first Sunday morning of every month the Sunday school at Matamoros, Mexico, takes a collection for the boys' school. They began that ten months ago, at which time they promised $100 of their .iiuiicj. Aimougn tncre has been an average attendance of only forty-three, they have given daring these ten months. , $128.28. And last Sunday they promised another $100. H. L. ROSS. H. Matamoros, Mex. THE EDUCATIONAL CRISIS IN KOREA. In recent years various forces have been working together in Korea to produce an educational crisis of the most acute kind. Of the 2,000 groups of Christians quite a number have been organized into churches and are calling for the ministry of educated pastors and mon?r. ",ni ? * .......j g.uujra ?in soun oe reaay tor organization. Of the 1,000 Christian primary schools many cannot find teachers competent to teach other branches than the Chinese language Of the 25,000 children in these schools, some are already asking for high school and technical training. Who shall supply these demands? Shall we adhere to the principle of self-support and say, "Let the Koreans furnish their high schools as they do their primary schools." Impossible! To do what they . are now doing costs them privations of which Americans know nothing. To carry the evangelistic work and the primary schools is all they can do at present. Rut annthor fnrno ia tvi w io ciiuca vui Ulg lO mould the Korean character, and that is the Japanese government. At all important centers large, well constructed, well equipped government school houses invite the ambitious Korean youth to come in and sit at the feel of Japanese teachers. If these were Christian teachers we might well rejoice; but. alas, in most msps cept and example, they are anti-Ohrlstian. For the American church not to provide higher education would be to turn It over to such teachers as these with the result that the bright, ambitious scholars would be lost to the church, that atheism would pass as a mark of