other efforts fruitless and unavailing. Congregations must be taught to follow the example of the apostle Paul, who worked with his own hands rather than be burdensome to any one. They must realise, as it were, that if they don't work neither shall they eat. We must insist that congregations which have the means within themselves of being selfsustaining, shall be self-sustaining. I know the remarks this suggestion will occasion. It will be said that it is harsh and cruel; but we have good reasons to justify it. We have to deal with an injustice-the greater good of the Church requires it-we are wasting the resources of the Church by tolerating it, and we are ruining congregations by encouraging it. Are we to perpetuate what is a weakness and a disgrace through some sickly sentimentalism? Surely not, when higher interests demand a change. The Equal Dividend was a product of the Disruption, and a noble act it was on the part of our Disruption ministers. The idea of maintaining our character and standing as the National Church of Scotland, and supplying ordinances to an adhering population, was a grand conception, but there is no doubt that in the excitement and enthusiasm of the time, defects in the principle on which the scheme was based, passed unheeded, and it is these defects that are the cause of that want of buoyancy and life in the Sustentation Fund which we all deplore. But a generation has almost passed since then. We can now judge of the working of the scheme, and are alive to its defects; and we are not willing that for the mere sake of carrying out the idea of a National Church, congregations that have the means, but not the will to part with them, should continue to act as a downdraught on one great central fund. It is not many years since a great war was carried on for the sake of an idea, but we know that the idea resulted in the cession of Nice and Savoy; so, if we intend to carry out the idea of a National Church, by providing an equal payment to all our ministers, it is in the expectation that we get something substantial in return. We expect that congregations will realise their duty to the fund, and fulfil their mission as members of a great Extension and Home Mission Church. If so many congregations have been fostered since the Disruption, it is surely time that they were supporting themselves, and in the condition of lending a helping hand to others. The members of our Church, I believe, are more deeply impressed than ever, with the duty that lies upon them of carrying the gospel into the dark and neglected places of our land, and they are convinced that a minister who does his duty in the poorest of our congregations is entitled to an adequate support, they are equally convinced that to support congregations which are perfectly able to support themselves, if they had the will to do it, is a burden too heavy to be borne; and, shut your eyes to it as you will, it is this feeling that, like a silent irritant, is injuring, to a great extent, the prosperity of the Sustentation Fund. What I now seek to urge upon the Church is this-the duty of making a common benefit, a common obligation. Success in a scheme such as the Sustentation Fund is out of the question, unless every member of the Church is willing to contribute to it in some proportion to his means. Our dependence is on the general contributions of our people. They, who are not willing to help themselves, can't expect to be helped long by others. The duty lies on poor as well as rich. Paul wrote to the Corinthians-" I mean not that other men be eased and ye burdened, but that there may be equality."

This is the rule for us to follow now. The Sustentation Fund is not a plan for relieving the poorer of our congregations and throwing the burden on the richer ones. No man, however poor, has reason to regard himself as a Christian, who is not willing to do what he can to secure for himself and others the benefit of a pure and preached gospel. The supporters of an Equal Dividend-pure and simple-have been referring with evident satisfaction to the article on the Sustentation Fund that appeared in the January number of the Princeton Review, and to which Dr Buchanan has referred, and a monthly periodical which has been lately started, wrote approvingly of this article, and quoted one or two passages of it, but omitted the paragraphs which I shall now refer to. Dr Hodge, in the Princeton Review, while advocating the introduction of a Sustentation Fund and an Equal Dividend into the Presbyterian Churches of America, says :-"There is always a tendency in the poor of a congregation to throw all pecuniary burdens on the richer members, and a similar tendency on the part of weak congregations to rely on the more wealthy ones. This tendency is to be resisted, both for the sake of the poor, as well as for the sake of the congregation. It enervates and degrades the weak, and it puts the liberality of the strong to a trial they will not be likely long to sustain, and will infallibly frustrate the measure unless it be effectually resisted." And again, Dr Hodge says:-"The co-operation of all classes is desirable-poor as well as rich-neither class should be exempted. All must co-operate, each giving according to his ability, for without this general co-operation any Sustentation Fund must inevitably fail." These paragraphs I quote with perfect confidence in support of the views which I hold, that if an Equal Dividend is to be maintained in our Church, it is absolutely necessary that you introduce checks. We must resist to the utmost of our power, the unhealthy and ruinous tendency of poor congregatious to lean so much on the more wealthy ones. The weak congregations in the United Presbyterian Church display a nobler and more independent spirit. In the lately issued United Presbyterian Report it is said, "that the most startling facts, revealed by recent statistics, relate to the comparatively small amounts contributed for the direct support of the ministry by our strongest congregations, and the large comparative amounts devoted to that end by our weakest churches. The strongest point in our finance as a Church we hold to be the comparatively large rate of contributions by our weak charges towards our smaller stipends; and the weakest point of our financial arrangements, as a Church, is the comparatively meagre contributions made for pastoral income by congregations giving the largest income to their own ministers." The converse、

of this holds true in our Church. With us, the wealthy congregations are our chief reliance-the poorer ones, our heaviest burden. The action to be taken by us in dealing with defaulting aid-receiving congregations, to be effective, must be direct and immediate. The idea of dealing with these congregations, only at a vacancy, is to my mind. worse than useless. Why, in these congregations there are rarely any vacancies, for their ministers rarely move, and, as was said by some one, they seldom seem to die. The action to be taken thirty or forty years after this is too remote to be of any avail. Could any business be conducted for a single day, with profit and success, on such a principle as this? And yet, such is the principle embodied in some of our Acts of

Assembly, and which some of our friends still think would be allsufficient as a check on the sloth and selfishness of so many of our congregations. Why, by acting in this way, you pass over the real offenders, who should suffer now, and you punish the future minister of the congregation, who may not yet be born, and inflict a hardship on a generation of worshippers, who may not yet be in existence. There is another abuse to which I referred in last Assembly, and which I am sure is also telling with damaging effect on the success of the Sustentation Fund. By allowing aid-receiving congregations to supplement their minister's stipends, you are chilling the ardour of many of our best people in the support of the fund, and you are souring the minds of our ministers who are doing their duty to the fund, and yet get no supplement at all. This abuse has been often referred to, and in a report to this House in 1860, I find this paragraph :-"The question is, What is now to be done? and whatever may be the answer, one thing is obvious, that the present system of congregations, and more especially aid-receiving congregations, supplementing the stipends of their ministers, is fraught with ever-increasing danger to the very existence of the general fund." I am not aware that anything has yet been done, and the only answer I ever heard attempted to be made in support of the system was this:-That the total sum appropriated in the shape of supplements by our aid-receiving congregations, was not much after all. Perhaps we have not a right idea of what a large sum is, but I think a sum that would add seven or eight pounds a-year to the Equal Dividend is a sum not to be despised. But it is not the amount so much that I look at, as the injustice of allowing congregations, who are dependent on the Church for very existence, as it were, by their own act, to give their ministers much larger stipends than the Equal Dividend affords, and an advantage over other ministers, to which they are not entitled. The generosity of these congregations should be governed by justice. The Sustentation Fund, to which they are indebted, has the first claim on their liberality-that claim may not be so immediate, but it is more imperative. These congregations are bound to be self-sustaining, if they can, and the fact that they are able to give large sums by way of supplement, is convincing proof to my mind that they are able to do more than they are doing to the Sustentation Fund, if they had the will. Their generosity is benefiting a minister here and there; but their conduct is destroying the prosperity of the fund, and undermining that confidence in it, which is the very basis of its success. By giving away, what I hold is not their own, they are injuring the Church and acquiring a character for generosity, to which they are not entitled, for it is at the expense of others, who are acting more honestly than themselves. I do not object to supplements in the abstract, but I maintain, that before aid-receiving congregations begin to supplement, they are bound to be self-sustaining. Let them first pay to the Sustentation Fund what they get out of it, and then, out of their fulness, let them give to their ministers the supplement, which no right-minded man will grudge. The only remedy for this is, that the Act of Assembly of 1861, which applies to non-self-sustaining congregations thereafter admitted on the platform of the Equal Dividend, should be made to apply to all our congregations alike. To show the working of the system and its injustice, I will just refer you to one or two cases. One congregation sends £50 to the Sus

tentation Fund in 1864, and supplements with £43; in 1865, they send 11d. more to the Sustentation Fund, but add £5 more to the supplement. Another sends £51 in 1864 to the Sustentation Fund, and supplements with £19; in 1865, they send £14 less to the Sustentation Fund, but they add a pound more to the supplement. I could give you. a host of cases, but I will only mention another. This congregation in 1864, sent £81 to the Sustentation Fund, and gave £154 as a supplement. In 1865, they send a pound less to the fund, but add £12 more to the supplement, making the supplement given by a congregation contributing £80 to the Sustentation Fund, £166. This is a congregation with between four and five hundred members, and a congregational fund of about £300. Will any one say that this congregation could not be self-sustaining if it liked? Will any one say that it should not be made to be self-sustaining, or forfeit a part of the dividend? There is no wonder that many of our people are dissatisfied with a system which allows such cases to go on, year after year, without any control, and feel that there is an absolute need for the speedy introduction of an efficient check. In close connexion with this, there is another abuse which needs a remedy too. During past years, there are congregations whose schedules have passed through the Sustentation Committee, which have not kept faith with the Church, in remitting to the Sustentation Fund the sums they have promised. In the last ten years this has caused a loss to the Sustentation Fund of between three and four thousand pounds, and it affects the equal dividend to each of our ministers to the extent of more than four pounds a-year. If the Church is to be bound to give the Equal Dividend, on the faith of the promises these congregations have made, surely common justice demands, that these congregations should fulfil their promises too. An undertaking of this kind should have all the force of a legal and moral obligation, and only in very pressing circumstances should congregations resile from it. If these promises are not to be kept, it is a farce to ask congregations to fill up sche dules at all, and the whole performance is a delusion and a snare. But while I would rejoice in a more strict administration of the Sustentation Fund, and a correction of the abuses which mar its operation, -while I would rejoice to see our Presbyteries take a more lively interest in its prosperity, and a more earnest supervision of the associations within their bounds, for a mere perfunctory reception of reports at their stated meetings is not enough. I feel there is great need for an elevation of the standard of giving to the Sustentation Fund over the whole Church. Our congregations are not keeping pace with the increase of wealth that is going on around them. Our people are increasing in wealth, but in very many cases they do not appear to increase in liberality. The contributions seem to be stereotyped, and do not grow with our people's growth. We are every day losing some of our large subscribers, but we find few stepping forward to supply their places. Our people must learn, that the duty of sustaining the Christian ministry in a proper manner, is a duty binding on the whole Church-on rich as well as poor. Because a person cannot do much, that is no reason why he should do nothing. A fair, honest, and systematic giving on the part of all our members, is a more healthy and safe dependence, and will conduce more to the stability and prosperity of our Church, than a high rate of giving on the part of few. If we consider, that about fifty of our

highest class congregations provide an endowment of more than £30 ayear to all the ministers on the Equal Dividend platform, that about £18,000 of this sum are the contributions of a thousand individuals, and that as these subscriptions are lost by death, the blanks are not readily filled up. If we consider that in some of the congregations which send to the Sustentation Fund the largest amounts-sums like £700 and £1300 a-year, the great bulk of the people are contributing at rates of 4s. and 3s. to less than 1s. a member. I think there is a demand upon us to widen the basis on which the Sustentation Fund rests. If you wish to attract young men of standing and of promise into the ministry, -if you wish to secure a class of men, who will command respect, and influence society, you must assure them of a proper support; you must secure to them something better than a mere mechanic's wage. A remark of Isaac Taylor's is worth noticing in this connexion. He says, "A lack of candidates for the ministry, or, what is nearly of the same import, the derivation of its ministers from a rank below the mean level of the people, is an ominous symptom; and should engage the most serious attention of those who undertake to think and care for the body." There is a loud call to us at present to think of these things. If we wish to see the position of our ministers improved, and the future prosperity of our Church secured, we cannot longer disregard the matters to which I have directed your attention. And if the teachings of our pulpits have their proper effect, they will tell most surely on the Christian liberalities of our people. The effect of these teachings ought surely to banish that selfishness which is so awfully common to us all; and cause us to give without grudging to the cause of Christ. Their effect will be, to make us feel that it is more blessed to give than to receive. If we had more spirituality, we would have less selfishness. If we had more love, we would show greater zeal. In conclusion I say, let not a prejudiced attachment to any particular system lead us to oppose a necessary change. Timely concession and improvement now, may prevent a more violent change hereafter. Recollect, as was once said by George Canning, "that they who oppose an improvement, because it is an innovation, may one day have to submit to innovation which has ceased to be improvement."

Mr NAIRN suggested, as a means of awaking further interest in the Sustentation Fund, the issue by the committee of a periodical paperquarterly, or even half-yearly-with special information, as in the case of foreign missions.

Dr G. G. BROWN (elder) threw out the suggestion how easily congregations might add to their minister's income by paying the subscription to the Widows' Fund annually for him. If a few members were to give annually a shilling each, they could at once add £7 to the Equal Dividend-making it for this year, say, £150. There was hardly a single deacons' court, he believed, but would take up such a matter as this, and carry it into effect.

The report was then approved of, and the Equal Dividend declared to be £143.

SPECIAL REPORT OF SUSTENTATION FUND COMMITTEE.

Dr BUCHANAN gave in a special report with reference to the communication which the committee should have with vacant congregations, before steps are taken to moderate in a call to a minister. (No. XXXIV.)