The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-06-02
MINISTERIAL SUPPLY SCARCE

| MIN NlSI6HltN SOSShH oOEahS6
We find in a recent number Of the
Literary Digest, an urgent plea, taken
from a communication in the New York
| Observer from the Rev. Thornton b.
! Penfeld,, for more and better recruits
for the ministry. Mr.. Penfeld esti-
mates that nearly seven thousand men
are needed annually to I'll the vacan-
cies in the Protestant ministry made
absolute by death or retirement; but
/ the total number Of students now in
! the Protestant seminaries of North
America are hardly enough TO meet
that annual requirement. Mr.. Penfeld
goes on and reviews some of the spe-
! cial efforts made by himself and 9TH
! ers TO stimulate the zeal of the students
in various educational institutions for
the calling of the ministry. But after
all, he confesses that the enthusiasm
is not great, and that the need of min
listers 10 fill the Protestant Pulpits is
still urgent and likely TO remain ur-
gent for long time TO come. The
gaps are not filed, and the demand for
ministers is so great that it cannot be
met.
In the same number Of the Literary
Digest, on the page preceding the one
which carries the above lament as TO
the dearth Of Christian ministers, there
is an exposition by a minister which,
from the financial point of view, may
have n good deal to do with the ex-
PLANTATION Of why more flt young men
do not take to the ministerial calling,
When student who has passed his edu-
cational tests and finds himself well
equipped for the work Of the world,
is asked to join the ministry, and IN
looking about and considering the fields
that are open TO him, what does he see?
He sees men in the professions of the
law, Of medicine, in engineering, in
newspaper work, in railroads, and in
various callings in mining, In irriga-
ton, in special educational work, re-
ceiving good salaries. often very large
salaries. and becoming independent of
the world; all doing useful, congenial
work at a profit to themselves and to
others; they being in condition at
the same time to live their own free,
manly lives without carking care. or
cringing or trucking 10 anybody. Then
they look at the ministry. They see
for the most part that ministers are
i'll paid, that their salaries are uucer-
tain and often grudgingly metcd out,
oh of al Al
ister's life harasscd with petty cares.
personal and family, that have no place
in the lives of successful lawyers, doe
tors, or those who engage In the gen
eral work OF the world with the educa-
tional equipment that these young men
have,
The Literary Digest quotes in this
strain from the Independent where
young man says that his father ranked
among the most prominent preachers
of his day, he was foremost also in pub
lie questions, in educational work and
much honored in his ministry: but
''after almost six decades of continu-
Gus active service, and pinching pow
erty, when my revered and hopored
father died he left-a good name and
butchers bill" Speaking of him.
self, also in the ministry, he says. at
forty years OF age, after twenty wears
of active service, he is virtually down
and out, and asks how could it be
otherwise on an average salary, for city !
work, of $1,000 year. He points out
that it is impossible for minister TO
do the best that is in him when he |
is harassed and held down in this man. (
ner. And summing up, he comes to the |
point thus:
There is nc. use beating about the bush
for revival or Tor q solution OF the
problem OF candidates for the orda Ine5 .
ministry OF the Protestant Church or tor I
satisfactory answer To the question OF
world wide eyangelization An thcse
things may be found at once In an en-
ilShtened Christian conscience and a re-
doomed Christian purse, We may talk as
we VIII about our prayer meetings and
our conferences. and our what not tho
Christian laymen are locked up with their
cash boxes In the inmoSt recesses of
their chilled steel vaults down al tho
Imperial Banking House OF His Maiestv
Myself. and the millennium Will not come
until we break the bank.
And he finally, as confession and
eyhortation, closes in these words:
/ Never once In all my twenty yeors.
ministry has the church lived up TO It's
so-ca!lel temporal contrGc. with me
Never oncc And when [ say the church
! refer to men whom l have distinctly
IN mind, who pride themselves on their