Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1897-06-02
FOR THE PREACHERS
PLAN TO CREATE A FUND FOR THE
POORER CLERGY.

Tales of Distress from Worn Out Metbo.
dist Ministers-Money at the Disposal
of Conferences Is Insuffcient-NIite So.
cieties Will Be Started.
Save the broken down and worn ont
preachers from starvation and the door.
house.
That is the cry of leading Methodists
Rev. DR.. Jay Benson Hamilton, former
ly pastor of the Simpson Methodist
Episcopal church in Brooklyn, is at the
head of national movement to accom-.
plish the desired result. At present, un.
der the system in vogue, minister, aft.
er devoting all of the best years of life
in the pastoral work at salaries often
not reaching $500 year, finds himself
i'll his old age not only broken in health,
but practically penniless. OF course in
each conference of the Methodist Epis
copal church there is fund for super.
animated preachers, but unhappily it is
wofully inadequate, some exceptionally
needy men receiving scarcely $3.50
year from it, and many of them have
absolutely no other means of support.
Appeals to the general conference, hun
dreds of them pathetic in the extreme,
have been made from time to time, but
no plan to provide money for the suffer.
ing ones seems to have been devised.
DIR. Hamilton has new proposition.
This is the establishment of what he
calls Asbury mite societies, to be COM
posed of not only adults, but children.
Members of the former are expected to
contribute 10 cents a year, those of the
latter cent. By this means he hopes
and expects that permanent fund Of
sufficient dimensions will be created to
place every broken down preacher be.
You'd want as long as he lives
DR.. Hamilton says: ave will be told
that there is no room for another organ
ization. Every movement which has
aught to bless humanity has had to
meet with the same cry, No ROOM.
Bethlehem had no room for the Di.
vine Babe; the world had no room for
the Son of God. Jesus, the man, was
permitted to share the malefactors
cross and be buried in borrowed tomb
1t may be well to divide stall with an
OK and share a crumb with dog OR
even die shameful death, if thereby
room may be made for divine idea
that will not die.
"Who will say No room?' Not lay
man with a brain to think or heart to
feel will object to handful of women
gathering mites to relieve the distress
of those without whom we would have
had no church. Will any minister OBJ
ject? Yes. The young minister to whom
REORGANIZATION is far off atftlctloh
hidden by the mists of the future. Ana
yet there are many young claimants
"Young men die and leave widows
and children. Possibly some minister
who by marrying or buying piece OF
land has banished the dread of poverty
from his mind may deprecate this move,
ment. He may suggest the imitation u
his own example as the better way We
wait to see if any needy, worn out MN
lister, or the widow of a deceased preach
er subsisting upon u shameful plttahce
will manifest anxiety lest we may suo'
ceed -
DR.. Hamilton has announced that Wv
superannuated ministers petitioned Inc
latest general conference of the chulVn
to adopt plan of ministerial support
which would remove the discriminate
made against the retired ministers. h0
has many pathetic appeals in his posse:
sion, of which the following are speo',,
mems, the names Of the writers -
course. being omitted:
II have been so distressed that nav
wished a thousand times when ien
asleep that would never wake up agaip
on earth. Would to God | could ha''
died i'll the pulpit"
II am in my seventy-fourth year
gave 40 years Of earnest and iai.n,'iI
work. My health is so broken tha'
cannot labor any more. My CLAIM ia' S
year was withheld, and have receiN0'
no explanation. 80,
''The delay in answering your ie''s'
Is because / cannot write am p',a
lyzed. My sight is totally gone ma
speech is affected. am helpless ""'
without means. - =,
1.-THE taxes ON my little house are par'
due. l have tried to borrow the mon :na
but cannot raise it without crusil' nnt
sacrifice. The conference stewards ssn
me word last year that my nonresiu''n NV
In the conference bounds preludiceu Il.
cause and that l might expect NY hos
lowance to still diminish, as IL n
done for the last two or three sei
God only knows what is to pecoA'
us. New York journal. II