The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1873-12-17
From the North Carolina Presbyterian
THE FORCE OF EXAMPLE.


and Lizzie Jones for Disabled Ministers
Fund, ST." l should like Tommie and
Lizzie to know that this mention of them set
certain Sunday School teacher away up
here in Orange county to thinking. Who
these dear little ones may be, said to my
self, l know not, but they have evidently be,
gun well. They must have been taught well.
They have given each fifty cents to good
cause. Perhaps it was all they had certain
accumulations,-ten cents laid by at one
time-fVe cents at another. Or perhaps
somebody had given them the whole sum at
once to do just what they pleased with,
making them feel like sudden miZbOnames
Or perhaps they gave of their abundance,
and had more than that left in their treasury.
Anyway, feel interested in them. Brother
and sister evidently. wonder what directed
this little stream of benevolence into that
particular channel "For disabled minsters?"
Did they know anything about our disabled
ministers especially: Had any one drawn a
picture for them of some White-haired man of
God, whose youth and health and strength
having all been spent in His service, he is left
in his old age to struggle with sickness and
poverty and in6rmity as he best can? "Dis
abled' that means of course that he can no
longer preach-perhaps cannot even leave
his house to hear others preach. And per-
haps he has no house of his own, but has to
live in another'S house. hope it may be a
kind sons or aughter sand that he has
no other grief than that of being disabled"
from preaching the blessed news. Did Tom
ME and Lizzie listen to some account of such
man living on alone,-wife and children
long since gone,-destitute of means, for
our ministers are seldom 80 paid as to be able
to lay up anything,-too feeble to ride from
church to church as he once could--too feeble
even to stand up in the pulpit to preach, too
feeble to teach or to do anything for his own
living:-tO whom shall we go for help but to
the Church ne has long served? ITO whom
shall we look but to the Master who has never
yet let one of His servants be forsaken, or
allowed their seed to beg for bread? | hope
that my dear Tommie and Lizzie have not
thought it was charity in which they be-
slowed their fifty cents. 1t was not charity,
it was paying an honest debt which we all
owe our disabled ministers, and debt too
which | do not think the Church ought ever
to have contracted. We ought to pay our
ministers more than we do while they are
young and strong, and are doing their great
work for us in the heat of the day. l do not
like this way Of running into debt and then
taking up collections to discharge it under
another name, aud calling it charity A dis
abled minister has right to be provided for,
and church people ought to see that it is not
bare pittance that is doled out. He should
be SO paid that he may enjoy good pipe of
tobacco if he chooses, that he may be able to
take the ~ c. Presbyterian and other
church publications, and that new book
may now and then lie on his table along with
the old Concordance and the well-worn Greek
Testament.
wonder if Tommie and Lizzie had read,
or had ever heardr read about Father Tutwiler,
whose story appeared in the N. C. Pres6yte.
rian few weeks ago, and whose whole salary
from his churches for one year was little
vial of paragoric! Perhaps that set them to
thinking of our ministers, and made them re-
solve to give their money as they did, Now
| want them to know that there is little bit
of Presbyterian Sunday School in the place
where live. A mere mite of school, SO to
speak. We have not had one for several
years because we had but handful of mem
ber8 and no children to speak of. But four
or five years brings the children along won
derfully and so now we have ten Presbyte-
rian born and bred girls and boys, and two
or three outsiders who have joined US for pity
| believe, and to help US along. We have a
fine church all to ourselves, and library,
and melodeon So, although l feel like
taking microscope to look for the school
every Sunday-it is so very small, -yet We
are resolved to be school, and to hold up
our heads with the best of them. When |
read of the donation of my friends Tommie
and Lizzie Jones, [ resolved to tell our Sun
day School about them-a8 far as knew at
any rate. And the result was that all our
children want to go and do likewise. l told
them though l did not know how Tommie
and Lizzie got their money, yet thought it
would be great deal better for them all to
try and earn what they gave. To go to
father and mother and ask for ten cents
every Sunday is not offering God what cost
them anything. The widows mite was valu.
able because it was her all. Then the next
question was how to earn. How can little
girl five years old or eight years old earn any
money? However, l did not doubt when
there was will that there would be way
So set up our disabled ministers box, with
hole in the lid and every Sunday we are to
drop something in it, and at Christmas we
are to open the box and send its contents to
Mr.. Lindsay, at Greensboro. If Tommie
and Lizzie could look out of my window this
minutt-as l wish they could, they would
see one, two, three, four, five little girls out