CHAPTER XXXIX.

"Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?" not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn."

Who

"Thou shalt

"If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?"

THOUGH Mr. Vernon's intellect and scholarly grace have not been fully appreciated in Olney, they have not been unnoted from without. His ministerial brethren understand his power; and, when it is known that he will seek another field, he is recommended as the man to build up a new enterprise in the suburbs of a distant city. He is sent for thither to preach a Sabbath; and, to avoid a stir among his people before the time, directs his supply to exchange pulpits with brother Langdon. Mr. L. halted a moment at the parsonage, Saturday night, to say that he had taken a notion to stop over Sabbath with Captain Brown. Right welcome, too, was he made at the warm-hearted farmer's, in whose ear he resolved, before he left, to lodge some important truths.

It was Sabbath evening, and the fire blazed cheerfully in the capacious Franklin, before which sat the farmer in his armchair, the young minister in the Boston rocker, and Mrs. Brown. Susie had run over to the parsonage. A conversation much like the following ensued :—

Mr. Langdon. How many families have you in the parish, Captain Brown?

Captain Brown. About a hundred, I believe, sir.

Mr. L. You have a fund, I am told. How much of the salary does it leave you to provide for from the pews?

Capt. B. A hundred and fifty, or thereabouts.

Mr. L. How much do your ablest men pay a-year? Capt. B. Well, I reckon the ablest don't pay the most. There's Esquire Eaton,-his property goes into the list for about thirty thousand; and Mr. Briggs, I suppose, is worth twenty. Sometimes they bid off a seat for two or three dollars; the highest are five, now, they used to be seven or eight, but the congregation has increased.

Mr. L. And while you have been paying five and four and three dollars apiece, to support the Gospel here, your minister, it seems, has paid a hundred, besides giving himself! Is that honest?

Capt. B.. (reddening). I don't think his salary is large enough, sir; but I believe there's nothing dishonest about it. We give him what we agreed.

Mr. L. You pay him the nominal sum at which his support was rated; but does not the contract between you, from its nature, imply that, if he devote himself to your service in the ministry, you are to be responsible for his temporal wants,-to give him a comfortable support?

Capt. B. I suppose we are to give him what we promised. Mr. L. But, underneath that promise, is there not a pledge -an obligation, at least-to provide all things needful for his bodily comfort, and his intellectual and social wants? You would be ashamed to say that you expected or desired a man to labour here in the ministry, partly at his own charges, when you are all above-board as to property, and made richer every year by the influence of religious institutions.

Capt. B. Well, we thought five hundred would do it. Mr. L. And, when you were frankly told that it did not, what then? Did not honesty require you to add to it? Mr. Vernon, I am told, has to struggle with poverty, and live very closely.

Capt. B. I am willing to give him more. I am sorry for

their troubles; yet, I suppose, really, my wife and I calculated about as close, when we began life.

Mrs. B. O, Mr. Brown, that was a very different thing! We were not compelled to it. We did it, you know, for the sake of laying up.

Mr. L. Altogether different, sir. Suppose you had been at work with all your might for some one else, who kept back part of your earnings, and thus obliged you to deny yourselves common comforts,—would it have come as easy? The fact is, Captain Brown, half of you business men look upon us ministers as a set of poor fellows, that are glad to preach the Gospel for the sake of a living. It never seems to occur to you that we have relinquished or foregone business prospects bright as yours, with no more obligation to give them up than you, only as the command of Christ to preach his Gospel presses upon our conscience and heart. Why, just look, sir, at the clergy right around us here.

There's Mr. Catlin, a man of finished education, might have made himself rich by teaching. He was tutor at Dartmouth, and was offered a professorship; but his heart was set on preaching, and there he has been at it these twenty years,all the while struggling with poverty, and his wife writing books and turning every way to bring up their children.

Here, too, nearer still, is Mr. Merton,-a man whom all respect, a thorough scholar, particularly skilled in astronomical science. The way was once open for him to a place in the National Observatory, with a salary of 2000 dollars; but he declined the tempting offer, and is trying to live on five hundred, fitting boys for college to make up a support. His people, I hear, are beginning to complain that he does n't write as good sermons as he did at first.

Capt. B. I suppose they do for him about what they are able.

Mr. L. Perhaps they do, according to the prevailing standard of ability. But let that pass. To speak of myself, next in order, I was offered by my uncle a salary of a thousand dollars to go into his store as clerk. And here is your Mr. Vernon, who gave up a profession in which, with his talents, he might now be worth his thousands. And yet, I venture, there are people in this place who will give each other the wink, and say, "He's glad enough to stay and work on, even for what we give him." He is glad to work for Christ, and look for his reward in heaven; but, as for feeling remunerated by the pittance you allow, were it not for the constraining love of Christ and the sustaining grace of God, he would fling it in your face, and wipe off the dust of his feet for a testimony against you.

Capt. B. I own it's a shame we don't give him more; but our deacons are opposed to it, and it is hard carrying matters over their heads.

Mr. L. I should n't mind much about such heads. But I was about to say that the support of the Gospel is viewed too much as a charity. All these churches, whose preaching costs them the merest moiety of their income, are living comfortably themselves, educating their children, and increasing their possessions, and willing to pay an equivalent for everything they procure, except the Gospel! When they pay their lawyer, or doctor, or schoolmaster, or shoemaker, it is for value received, --a commercial operation; but when they pay their minister, it is a gratuity.

Capt. B. I never feel like that. I think the Gospel is worth all we pay for it, and more, too, even to our secular interests. Some are for making it up to Mr. Vernon in presents of produce; but my motto is, " Money answereth all things." I would give him salary enough to live on; then, if we want to make him presents, we can.

Mr. L. I hope you will not think I am giving you a lecture, Captain Brown. I know you are more candid in these matters than many men. I heard of a man, between this place and mine, who said he thought ten dollars a Sabbath was a great price for a minister to ask, for just preaching two sermons that he could write in a week. Now, this shows another thing overlooked. All these ministers have spent nine or ten of the best years of their life, and from one to two thousand dollars, to qualify them to write these two sermons a week. Think what a lift the time and money thus consumed would have given them in some worldly calling. Now, if you estimate their labour on the mercantile principle, if you begin to talk about "what it's worth," you must consider the capital they have invested in the business. Every week's labour, for ten years, has cost them a week's preparation, at their own charges. Now, instead of fixing the compensation on this principle, the question is, "What is the least our minister can live on?” And even here, he is not to be the judge and decide the question for himself. Yet, who so competent as he to tell? What is comfort for one is not necessarily for another. Some farmers, captain, want twice the tools to work with that others do, and more to keep the pot boiling.

Capt. B. Just so, sir-just so.

Mr. L. And you don't find it bad management to enrich the soil by an outlay, now and then, for plaster and guano. "It pays," said the captain, rubbing his hands; "it pays."

Mr. L. And it's no great advantage to the farm, to scrimp the working cattle, or have the cows “ spring-poor."

Capt. B. You hit it again, sir.

Mrs. B. I believe I said once that I thought a minister might live on five hundred dollars; but when Mr. Vernon came to make his statement to the Society, I thought more of