St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1909-05-05
Minister'S Salaries.

The Home Herald of Chicago has beer
gathering statistics of ministers salaries
Letters were sent out to Several hund
red" pastors of different denomination,
all over the country. The number O
replies is not stated. The average salary
reported by those who did reply is $S25
the smallest $275 The following table
shows the distribution according tc
! salary:
| $500 and over per cent
! $1,000 to $4,000 5 per cent
| $500 to $1,000 10 per cent
| $1,000 to $500 81 per cent
| $500 to $1,000 80 per cent
| $275 to $500 per cent
This is certainly sorry showing. The
figures cause no surprise, however, for
the fact which they serve to illustrate
has long been we'll known, and the
reasons for the phenomenon have been
widely discussed At bottom, the ex-
PLANTATION of the meagre salaries OF
ministers is doubtless to be found in the
low estimate placed by the public upon
their professional services. The average
man values cultural and spiritual ser
vices less highly than he does profession
persons are less concerned about the
cultivation of their minds and the saliva
ton of their souls than they are about
health and wealth. Consequently teach
ers and ministers are paid less than
physicians and lawyers. Moreover,
people have made the discovery that the
services of the minister are not absolute
" indispensable to the we'll being of their
souls. They have learned that they can
work out their own salvation without
ministerial assistance. Fancy what
would happen to the salaries of lawyers,
if people began to look after their own
law business; or to the pay of physicians,
if folks did their own doctoringl An
other big factor in keeping the pay of
ministers below the salary level of the
other professions has been free education.
Scholarships and subsidies have pauper-
lied the profession. The easier and
cheaper the entrance into any calling,
the lower the pay. These various intiu-
ences which have been named are not the
only contributing causes of the low pay
of the clergy, but they are the most I'M
portant.
The questions were put to the minis
tiers by the Home Herald: with the
knowledge that you now have, would
YOU enter the ministry if you had it to
do again? Would the salary conditions
have any influence on your decision !"
Nearly ninety per cent replied that they
should again choose the ministry. Those
who replied in the negative usually gave
no reason. With the doubtful class
those who are undecided but inclined
toward the negative-the salary ques-
ton is the main consideration. One
writes: II would not enter the ministry
again if | could keep out of it. The
salary would not keep me out, but L
think l would choose some christian
work where would be more independ-
emf and not under the humiliation of the
financial limitations to which lhave been
subjected in the fifteen years of my
ministry" The writer of this stands
comparatively we'll up in the financial
scale, receiving $4,000 and the parsonage.
ut is hard question" writes an
other in rather pathetic tone. mo ex'
periences have yet had, so far as salary
is concerned, would, had | anticipated
them, have kept me from the ministry.
But have not reached the end of the
chapter yet. do not resent poverty;
expected to be poor. But the
meagre salary presses harder every year,
especially on the wife. do not object