can command $6,000 or $8,000 in the pulpit could probably command three or four times that amount in the law or in business. Men who are as eminent in other professions and in the commercial world as the most eminent clergymen are in the ministry usually have incomes ranging from $20,000 to $100,ooo a year and have no "dead line" of age either. As for others, the Rev. Dr. B. L. Agnew, Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Ministerial Relief, is authority for the statement that the average salary of Presbyterian ministers is $700 and that for all denominations it does not equal the wages of the average mechanic. A missionary writes:-"Practically all our native pastors are underpaid." The same thing might be said of all the home missionaries and of most of the pastors of non-missionary churches at home, one-third of whom receive only $500 or less. The churches of America cannot, or at any rate will not, do for the native ministers of Asia what they are not doing for their own ministers. The world over, the rewards of Christ's service are not financial. Those who seek that service must be content with modest support, sometimes even with poverty. This is not a reason for the home churches to be content with their present scale of missionary giving, nor does it mean that mission boards are disposed to refuse requests for appropriations. The boards are straining every nerve to secure a more generous support and they will gladly send all they can to the missions on the field. But it is a reason for impressing more strongly upon the young men in the churches of Asia that they should consecrate themselves to the Master's service from a higher motive than financial support and that while the boards will continue to give all the assistance that is in their power, yet that the permanent dependence of the ministers of China must be in increasing measure upon the Christians of China and not upon the Christians of America. Hundreds of native pastors are already realizing this and are manifesting a self-sacrificing courage and devotion that are beyond all praise. Said Mr. Fitch of Ningpo to a Chinese youth of fine education and exceptional ability:-"Suppose a business man should offer you $100.00 a month and at the same time you had the way opened to you to study for the ministry, and after entering it, to get from $20.00 to $30.00 a month, which would you take?" And the youth answered-"I would enter the ministry." "He is now teaching a mission school at $12.00 a month, though he could easily command $30.00 a month in a business position." The hope of the churches of China is in such men. Mr. F. S. Brockman declares : "There is a wide-spread conviction among missionaries that the allurements of wealth alone are keeping English-speaking young men from the ministry. The facts do not bear out this belief. . . . In order to hold them in the ministry we need not appeal to their love of money. It is death to the ministry when we do it; we have opened the vial of their fiercest passion; we are doing what Jesus Christ never did; we are working absolutely contrary to the fundamental laws of the kingdom of God. . We must teach prospective ministers to look upon their lives as an unselfish expenditure of God-given power. For once make the allurement of the ministry the allurement of comfort, ease, or wealth, and we have closed up every fountain of the minister's power." T XXIV COMITY AND COOPERATION HE Hon. Charles Denby, then United States Minister at Peking, wrote in 1900: "With all due deference to the great missionary societie, who have these matters in charge, my judgment is that missionary work in China has been overdone. Take Peking as an example. There are located at Peking the following Protestant missions: American Boards American Presbyterian, American Methodist, Christian and Missionary Alliance, International Y. M. C. A., London Missionary Society, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, International Institute, Mission for Chinese Blind, Scotch Bible Society, and the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge. To these must be added the Church of England Mission, the English Baptist Mission and the Swedish Mission. The above list shows that of American societies alone there are seven in Peking, not counting the Peking University, and that all western Powers taken collectively were represented by about twenty missions. A careful study of the situation would seem to suggest that no two American societies should occupy the same district."1 It may be well to examine this criticism, partly because it was made by an able man of known sympathy with mission work, and partly because it relates to the city where, if anywhere, in China, overcrowding exists. In considering Peking, therefore, we are really considering the broad question of the practicability of withdrawing some missionary agencies in the interest of comity and efficiency. The Presbyterian missionaries themselves opened the way for the discussion of the question by proposing to the Congregational missionaries, after the Boxer uprising had been quelled, "an exchange of all work 1 Missionary Review of the World, October, 1900. and fields of our Presbyterian Church in the province of Chih-li in return for the work and fields of the American Board in the province of Shantung, subject to the approval of our respective Boards." The Mission added: : "It means no little sacrifice to sever attachments made in long years of service in fields and among a people whom God has enabled us to lead to Christ, but we feel that a high spirit of loyalty to Christ and His cause, inspiring all concerned, will lead us to set aside personal preferences and attachments, if thereby the greater interests of His Church in China can be conserved." The whole question was thoroughly discussed during my visit in Peking. Much time was spent traversing the entire ground. Then a meeting was called of the leading missionaries of all the Protestant agencies represented in Peking. The result of all these conferences was the unanimous and emphatic judgment of the missionaries of all the boards concerned that there is not "a congestion of missionary societies in Peking," and that no one board could be spared without serious injury to the cause. In reply to the proposal of the Presbyterian missionaries, the North China Mission of the American Board wrote "After considering the matter in all its bearings we are constrained to say that we contemplate with regret any plan which looks to the withdrawal of the Presbyterian Mission from the field which they have so long occupied in northern Chih-li. We think that instead of illustrating comity this would appear as if comity was not to be attained without a violent dislocation from long-established foundations, and that in this particular there would be a definite loss all around. . . We further deprecate the proposed step because there is now an excellent opportunity for the adoption of actual measures of cooperation between our respective missions. We are ready to readjust boundaries in such a way as to remedy the waste of effort in the crossing of one another's territory. We are confident that the ultimate outcome could not fail to be a greater benefit than the sudden rupture of long-existing relations for the sake of mere geographical contiguity of the work of missions like yours and ours, each keeping its own district, careful not to encroach upon the other. In the higher unity here suggested we should expect to realize larger results in the promotion of comity not only, but also in the best interests of that kingdom of God for which we are each labouring. "ARTHUR H. SMITH, Moreover, several of the agencies enumerated by Colonel Denby, such as the Y. M. C. A., the International Institute, the Mission to the Blind, the various Bible Societies, and the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge, are not competing missionary agencies at all, but are doing a special work along such separate lines that it is unfair to take them into consideration. As a matter of fact, with the exception of a comparatively small work by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the real missionary work in Peking is being done by only four Boards,-The American, Methodist, London, and Presbyterian. This is not a disproportionate number, considering the fact that Peking is one of the great cities of the world and the capital of the Empire. It is of the utmost importance that a strong Christian influence should be exerted in such a centre. Indeed, if there is any place in all China where this influence ought to be intensified, it is Peking. It is granted that Christian work is more difficult in a great city, that it is harder to convert a man there than in a country village. But, on the other hand, he is more influential when he is converted. Peking is the heart of China. Alone of all its cities, it is visited sooner or later by every ambitious scholar and prominent official. The examinations for the higher degrees bring to it myriads of the brightest young men of the country. The moral effect of a strong Christian Church in Peking will be felt in every province. If Christianity is to be a positive regenerative force in China it cannot afford to weaken its hold in the very citadel of China's power. It should be borne in mind that the work of the missionaries stationed at Peking is not confined to the city, but that Peking |