The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-15

lished and the Non Established church
 es of Scotland.
 Very general in England is the notior
 that the Scotch are hard-iisted lot
 who part with money only when they
 are obliged to and then in but niggardly
 sums. It transpres, however, that 1T
 the average support of their clergy they
 are generous to a degree which puts tC
 shame the situation in the Church oi
 England. Parish ministers in the Els abolished Church of scotland have aver age incomes, in addition to their mans
 es, of close upon fifteen hundred dollars
 year. and the average is kept well uI
 to d thousand dollars in the Free church
 and the United Presbyterian This is
 because of splendidly maintained sus-
 tentation funds, and Sir John Leng, af-
 ter remarking, in his letter to the Bish-
 op of London, that the Presbyterians of
 Scotland have set a noble example to
 the Episcopal Church of England, goes
 on to remind Bishop Ingram that for examples of this kind his lordship need
 not go outside of England itself Be-
 sides the million guineas the Wesleyans
 have nearly raised there is the five 1 hundred thousand guinea fund of the
 Congregatonalists and the two hundred
 and fifty thousand fund of the Baptists. | To hese Sir John Leng directs the bish-
 ops attention, and then, with no hope of
 a reply he pertinently askS-"What has
 your great and wealthy church recently done equivalent to splendidly liberal contributions like these2"
 In Congregational circles the great movement of the coronation year is one which proposes nothing less radical
 than a change in the Congregational form of church government In Eng land where the on-conformist church. eS have state church to contend with, the old principle of every little church for itself and the devil take the hind
 most" doesn't seem to have worked
 very we'll, although the devil, no doubt,
 has been perfectly satisfied with it.
 But small Congregational churches all
 over the country have ianguished and
 died for lack of some vital, sustaining
 connection with the stronger churches. There has been trouble also about the ministry, one standard of qualification obtaining in one county and a different one in another; city churches paying princely salaries and in country dis
 tricts the poor pastor getting scarcely enough to keep body and soul together. Another point of weakness has been that the independent system does not lend itself, as the Connectional does, to great money getting schemes, such as are necessary to carry on colleges and missions and that it affrods no means of rallying the Congregational body, as a whole for aggressive work amongst the masses.
 To remedy these defects the bold pro- posal now is to gather this divided Is- rael under one flag and one central ad- ministration. The new names suggest ed is the United Congregational church, and the father of this forward move ment is that old d-man- eloquent of the London pulpit, Dr. Joseph Parker. A great change of this kind could not have had sponsor more likely to carry it through, for besides his persuasive elo- quence pr. Parker brings to the move ment the weight of a great personality and the peculiar almost irresistible, in- huence which necessarily attaches to one who, after long and masterful life, takes up some task as his closing job and fights and pleads for it as though it were the one thing needful to make his life-work complete. Toy see Dr. Parker pleading before the Congre- gational Union of England and Wales for United Congregational church was q sight to bring tears, and when he an- nounced at the close that, owing to ailment, his work from that time would have to be limited to his own pulpit there was scarcely an eye in all that vast assem- bly. That this Moses of English Con- gregationalism will live long enough to lead his people into what ne deems the promised land of their enlarged useful ness, is extremely doubtful But at any rate he has pointed out the way to this Canaan, and at this moment, all over the individual churches and | county unions of Congregationalism are [ the project and preparing to | vote upon it.
 A great figure like Joseph Parker | in old age for great cause | makes one think of that other heroic | md aged figure, General Booth. whose | ot is rendered peculiarly hard just now | Dy the new defection that has arisen in | 1is own household. It is nothing un- common for officers of the Salvation | Army to go off after strange gods. An emotional religion is sure to lead ill-bal- inced souls into fanaticism, and ordi- nary instances of this kind are so eas- y and quickly disposed of, under the ,rmy system, that the general public carcely hears of them. But sad indeed must it be for this venerable chieftain 0 have to cut off his own flesh and blood for this cause. One wonders if he night not have stretched a point and ,iven Booth Clibborn and his wife lb- rty to believe what they pleased and O preach it, providing they were dis rect and still successfully carried on heir army work. General Booth, however. is a no-com- promise man. Like a flint his face has een set from the first against tobacco nd rum No man who smokes or rinks can remain a soldier in the Sal ation Army, and when one reflects how ; ommon are these practices over here.