"I wouldn't talk platitudes. If a man can't talk about religion in a sensible, manly way, he'd better keep still. These old, worn-out, threadbare phrases that don't mean anything-I'm sick of them! Where's Mr. Weatherby?"

The doctor also had recourse to Mr. Weatherby. He was concerned for his son, who often seemed ill at ease of late, if not positively unhappy. "Do you think," he asked, "that Elisha is really converted?"

"I think conversion is hardly the proper term to apply to his experience," was the answer. "Some are converted. But a youth who has been brought up in a Christian household, and taught from his very babyhood the fundamental principles of religion, can hardly be said to be converted at any particular time. Elisha's position has hitherto been a negative one with reference to religion. He has now taken his first step towards making it a positive one. It is the result of a decision of his own mind. The Christian life is a growth-at least, it should be such, and with Elisha it must be such. He has come into his present attitude under the combined influences of early teaching, his own sense of duty and desire to do what is right; and he is strongly influenced also by you and me, and indeed by all the family. Johnny's mind is differently constituted, and his experience is altogether different. He is more easily satisfied, and for a long time will be happier. But in the end Elisha will rise to

It was an odd thing for Dr. Trowbridge to do.

"No man," said he, "is dearer to me than you, Brother Weatherby. There is a strong tie between us, for we both have suffered."

"When I last saw her who was afterward so dear to you," said Mr. Weatherby, "she was a little girl, but she looked like her mother, and I loved her for her mother's sake. The moment I saw your boy I recognized in him also the fine features and, on further acquaintance, the noble nature of the woman I loved; and I loved him, too, for her sake. Ah! how beautiful she is in her old age! Time and suffering have not, in my eyes, impaired her comeliness. Before I came I had a wild idea that even now our lives might be united; but it was a selfish thought. I put it away and resolved, instead, that for her sake I would befriend the boy: and the other night I dreamed that his future and mine were in some mysterious way linked together-that we together came into deadly peril from which but one of us escaped alive."

"Do you believe in dreams," asked the doctor, gravely.

"The Hindoos do," he answered, smiling; "and I have lived so long among them that I may have imbibed some of their superstitions in spite of myself."

'If you are thrown in contact with my son in the future," said the doc

Mr. Weatherby. "Were it necessary, I would lay down

E would be a bold man who should dare to lay the sin of try at the door of a great Church as ours. Yet, if it be admitted "covetousness is idolatry," and the neglect to offer a just proporof one's income to the Lord for service, be a fair indication of covsness, it will be allowable to say much, at least, that our Church s to examine herself candidly on point. Our system, so perfect in y respects, seems especially imperin providing for our own house1. The doctrine of voluntary supof the ministry and Church, has e almost unquestioned from the being. Any thing looking like taxes, es, assessments, has been most senvely resented. The Reformers, reng from civil taxes for Church susance, passed to the other extreme of fect voluntaryism. "The law of e" has been the popular cry, and sermon too. As a consequence the of love has been left without any mal system; shorn of any method of veloping in any order that love into ady, organized fruitfulness. The

w of love has been a principle witht an external code. As usually inrpreted it has been an impulse in ct. And the law of love has been Iministered by the annual or seminual stirring up of the impulse from eep to temporary half-aroused activy. As a result, the returns have ever een feeble and inadequate to the ants of the Church, and not correponding to the ability of her memberhip. Her ministry has not been more han half supported; many of her hurches have languished and pined

away; and the Holy Spirit has been withheld. She has suffered from the curse of leanness. No one will pretend to assert, we presume, that the spiritual returns have been adequate to the means in operation, had those means been properly employed, and blessed as God promises to bless their righteous use. The memorial offerings exhibit a startling array of Church debts and Church wants, the supply of which seems essential to her successful progress. Country churches, where

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large wealth, have let their houses go to rack, and their ministers suppliment their insufficient salaries by devoting their time to the fields, or to literature, or to half-concealed agencies for books, insurance, and the like. In the cities the pew-system has set ministerial support in a business shape, and men have received a quid pro quo in sittings, for the preached gospel. In this way the poor have been thrust, quite necessarily in a business point of view, into the background, which is, in practical operation, putting them out of church doors. Grave doubts exist as to whether this business method which prevails under our present system of voluntaryism, will meet the demand of the Lord for gifts as sacrifices laid upon His altar, or will be counted in His presence as offerings of the heart to Him. Nor does this system rest upon the vaunted theory of the law of love. It is the law of necessity and respectability. You can not have a pew unless you pay for it, and being a professing Christian you can not afford to be without a pew; therefore, you are taxed to the amount of your pew rent,

churches of like position, will draw from other branches of the Church, or will send to Canada or Great Britain. The seminaries have not young men of parts sufficient to fill these places, and they can not be supplied from the W. C. band. Great stress is laid upon this large body of ministers without charge. But many of these are editors, teachers, agents, and probablywe say it most kindly-the most of them noble and good men whose powers have been dwarfed or exhausted by overwork, half pay, and ungenerous treatment, and who are not acceptable to active churches. Meanwhile the lecture system, the press, the general quickening of mental and commercial activity, and the progress of doubt and liberalism in all directions, have increased the demand for a higher order of preaching. The times require more thorough study, more condensed array of thought, fresh illustration, wider application, and a keener argument against the emboldened and newly-equipped enemies of inspiration. In short, we need the best men, while our system of sustenance is attracting only the inferior. It is needless to assert that this is a result of lack of piety in the Church. This is not the case. Especially among our young people, piety is more quickened and energetic than it ever has been. It then becomes necessary to inquire whether our system of voluntary giving, entirely unregulated, and with scarcely enough machinery to collect such subscriptions as are made-certainly with not enough to do it faithfully-does not lie at the root of this vital disease of the Church. Should not the Church provide some certain, reliable, and adequate means of livelihood for her ministry?

though you may choose high or low price as you like, or as your pride will dictate. Now, the result of this country negligence and city business is making itself felt, and yet to be more terribly felt, in the vital point of our Church means of progress-the reg ular increase and high-standing of the ministry. It can scarcely be questioned that, in comparison with the past, the proportion of young men of real ability consecrating themselves to the work of the ministry is painfully decreased. This is not underrating the candidates we have, or our young ministry. But it is a glaring fact that vastly more of our youth of high gifts and culture are passing by the ministry, and giving themselves to other professions, than formerly. A generation back the avenues opened for young men with greatest attractiveness were chiefly three-the law, medicine, theology. To-day the professions have multiplied, politics has increased its demands, science has opened new fields, literature, especially in the press, is calling them, and business in a hundred modes of development is alluring them to places of trust, reputation, and emolument. Here they find positions of usefulness and abundant means of sustenance. Where is the ministry meanwhile? Its salaries are scanty; its position unsettled and uncertain for lack of permanence in any settlement; its old men are reduced to half-rations; and its widows and orphans are barely provided for in a lower sphere of life than their original rank-and our best and most energetic young men have not been giving themselves to the work. This process, which has been covertly going on for some time, is now beginning to be seriously felt. Our theological seminaries find great difficulty in adequately manning their chairs. Within the semi-circle of a hundred and fifty miles from the writer, he counts ten first-class city churches without pastors, some of them having waited long

Friends come to a young man and say: "You have talents, energy, piety; you should devote yourself to the work of the ministry."

He answers: "I would like to do so; but look at your ministers-they have not a sufficient support assured to

wn household. But how can suredly do this in the minishat becomes of the families of ministers? They are usually, eir father have inherited a paand often even then, thrown on the world to struggle erty. How can I educate my n the ministry? You say I must he Lord. But it is presumpst without the use of appropri—and the means in the minisally inadequate. A minister is in on every side on the money He may not do what others ake money. He receives less pected to give more than any I do not feel called to a re I can not see my way clear stice to myself and to my You ask me, Christian peoive myself to the ministry. not you who do not give s, at least give of your means systematic, and fair proporcan be relied upon from year or ministerial support? Why the Church provide for a r a system of some kind that eve the consciences of young hose difficulties, which now the way of their feeling a to the work."

ch a response from a young s justifiable under our presgement of the methods of l support. Now, you say, it find fault, but not easy to But, we reply, if the fault taken, and be of an essential e Church ought to give its nd energies to the correction ome shape. Lest we seem to mere iconoclast, let us offer a dial suggestions. It seems r that the voluntary system, sent administered, is inadeour necessities. Two methnedy open: First, the volunm might be made efficient. churches are found where all t contribute, and who would properly approached, do now y just proportion. A thor

ough canvass under favorable circumstances of our congregations, with an efficient and prompt system of collecting subscriptions, would increase the salaries of our ministers twenty-five per cent. The general laxity or total lack of the present mode is notorious. It is so even in the pew-system, which has forced itself upon us by reason of the inability of the "law of love" lawlessness. Many subscriptions from those who take no pews might be made if properly approached, and the subscribers would be better and happier for it. And many pewholders who are conscious that their pew rent is not an adequate offering of their income, might be permitted thus to ease their consciences and subscribe in addition. Indeed, it seems to the writer that the whole pew-renting system needs remodeling to this extent, at least, that under our present plan the salary should be raised by voluntary subscriptions from all members first, and then if individual pews be selected, the subscriber be allowed the price of the pew selected, out of his subscription, and the balance to be called extra subscription, if that will satisfy.

We assume, what we believe to be true, that the people are ready to do their full duty, if only the matter be efficiently managed and placed in some systematic shape, equally to divide the responsibilities. And if it be true that giving is a means of growth in grace, and that withholding dwarfs the Christian life, then it becomes the first duty of the Church to see that all are brought under a pressure to do their just share.

It is

The other method suggested is a practical superseding of the voluntary or "cold and hot" system, by a constraining law of steady heat. taken for granted, generally, that by the law of Christian profession, each professor assumes an obligation to bear his proportion of church burdens. Let this fact be publicly recognized in the pledge taken upon joining the church. Here is where the voluntary idea should come in. It is voluntary