HOW TO MANAGE CHURCH FINANCE.

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Here comes a question which has been on our mind for years, and of which we have given "notice of motion" at several Associations. Is our Business Committee elected in the best way? Is it sufficiently large? Should the element of haphazard which is in it be suffered to go on unbalanced by an element of certainty? That Committee consists of the President and VicePresident of the preceding Association, the President elect, Secretary, and Minister or Ministers of the place where the Association is held. Good, so far as it goes. But is it large enough? Would it not be a gain to elect in addition and from year to year four or five men of proved business capacity, well stored with the customs and precedents of our body, free from all self-seeking, and as void of vanity as men of business ability usually are? We have been waiting for years to propose something like this. Will our friends think about it before we gather at Wisbech next June.

May we venture another suggestion? Would it not be well to print on Monday night, ready for distribution on Tuesday morning, the agenda for the whole session of the Association, in the order in which the business will be taken up? This could easily be done, and it would facilitate and illuminate our work in many ways. The more perfect plan would be to print, in addition, each night the work done in the day, the committees appointed, and where they would meet next day, and at what hour; and, in fact, print everything necessary to make the representatives as well acquainted with the order and state of the business as the President and Secretary themselves.

Of suggestions we have "more to follow;" many more; but these will suffice for the present. One thing is certain. We are organizing more and more every year. We must do it. The necessities of the nation, of the churches, and of our work, require it; and therefore we must have time, and be willing to give the pains necessary for doing business well. JOHN CLIFford.

HOW TO MANAGE CHURCH FINANCE.

No. IV.-" Pew-Rents," or not?

BY A "LIVE" DEACON.

I SHOULD have liked, Mr. Editor, to have postponed the question of "Pewrents" a little longer, and continued discussing matters less likely to excite differences of opinion; but the letter you have forwarded me makes it imperative the subject should be dealt with without delay.

"Pew-rents: ought we to have them?" that's the question. The answer cannot be given in a monosyllable, as your correspondent seems to think. They are not necessarily from the bottomless pit, because we do not read in the accounts of the church at Jerusalem that Stephen let sittings at half a shekel a quarter, and at eighteen inches a seat. The first seven deacons may not have discovered all the good and divinely approvable things in connection with church finance; and therefore the mere absence of "Pew-rents" from their "Acts" will not compel us to write them down as being wholly and in every case an unjustifiable method of obtaining the funds necessary for the conduct of the worship of Almighty God, and the promotion of the spiritual welfare and work of the church.

In their favour some very strong points may be urged. They supply an easy, expeditious, and certain way of raising funds. The money comes with little labour. A few hours a quarter will suffice. Deacons are mostly busy men, and cannot afford to ignore a recommendation so strong as this. You can reckon your income to a few pounds, and so prepare your budget with accuracy. The uncomfortable element of uncertainty is removed. There is little risk. It is business-like; as much so as letting houses, or, if you will forgive the allusion, as letting places on a stand on a race-course. For ease of collection; for despatch; for saving of time and trouble; for certainty in forecasting; for compelling the stingy to give; and for close affinity to the methods of commerce,

the "Pew-rent" system, without question, carries the palm over every other financial system church officers have yet discovered.

But there is another side altogether. Church Finance, I have always held, should be a department of Christian cultivation. The grace of giving ought to be one of the most helpful "means of grace" in the Christian brotherhood. It should evoke generous feeling; stimulate the action of conscience as to property; provide an altar for the offering of heart-sacrifices to God; and be one of the principal aids in the sanctification of our commercial life. The "Pew-rent" system reduces all this to its lowest degree. I suppose most people think less of the kingdom of Christ when they pay their seat-rents than in any other financial acts connected with their Christian life. The spiritual work to which the money is appropriated scarcely comes into view. There is not a pulse of sentiment in either the name or thing. It is cold, hard, and harsh as a market bargain; and has no more unction in it than the payment of an income tax. And so the churches lose one of the finest opportunities of counterworking the covetousness engendered by the commercial strife, and of giving free and healthy stimulus to a generous feeling in the consecration of all property to the service of the Lord Jesus.

Another defect is the retention and powerful obtrusion of mere monetary distinctions in the house of our common Father. The "communion of saints" is not very easy when everybody is labelled according to his week's earnings, and placed in the building so as to proclaim how much he is worth. Money rules in Covent Garden. It puts one man in St. Giles,' and another in Westbournia; but it is hardly desirable, to say the least of it, that it should banish Robinson and his family into a corner of the chapel, where he can scarcely hear or see, and locate Smith and his daughters in a large and well-placed and wellcushioned pew, simply because Smith has more money than Robinson. I have a strong notion some deacon had been suggesting a "Pew-rent" scheme when St. James wrote his "catholic" epistle, and exhorted the saints, saying, "My brethren have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory with respect of persons." Certainly that part of his epistle was meant for deacons and pewopeners, was it not?

Nor is the quarterly system of payment an unmixed good, An individual is tempted to think, as he looks on his receipts for four pounds paid for seat accommodation for himself, his wife, and family of four, for a whole year, that he has done great things, and is far from being an "unprofitable servant;" but if he were to call to mind, what no doubt he knows well enough, that he has given little more than threepence a week per head, he might be saved from a mischievous delusion. Though, of course, this quarterly or annual payment is not an essential element of the system, yet it is so commonly bound up with it, that it is quite fair to set it down to its hurt.

What, then? Do you propose the instant and unceremonious abolition of the system, and the substitution of free seats, appropriated to each attendant according to length of time in attendance, without respect to condition, and on the understanding of the payment of a self-assessed weekly amount ?"

No. I would not counsel haste. Do nothing without full consideration, frank exposition, and thorough oneness of opinion and desire. Do not upset a faulty system, working well, heartily, and successfully, in order to replace it by a better system, to be worked with suspicion and distrust. The best plan, by all means, if you can induce the people to work it; but it is better to keep to the old plan with unanimity and life and energy, than to create disaffection by trying to work the most perfect machinery with unwilling hands.

Keep the right idea in the diaconate, and disseminate it assiduously and wisely through the church, viz., that all giving is to spring from the personal consecration of self and property to the Lord Jesus. Teach each man by word and deed that his money is a sacred trust from his Lord, and that the sense of direct responsibility to Christ is to be kept keen and fresh. And then try gradually to adopt plans so as to quicken the feeling of obligation to the Saviour for the right use of all He bestows, to foster thankful and bounteous giving; and to make all money gifts in the church an occasion of promoting the feelings of brotherhood and of fellowship. In this way "Pew-rents" may be made to give place peaceably and without risk to a more excellent way.

THE REV. JAMES WOOLLEY.

THE Rev. James Woolley died at Leicester, March 4th, aged thirty-four years. Many of the readers of the Magazine will remember that our departed friend was trained for the ministry in our College, and was afterwards associated with the Rev. T. Stevenson as co-pastor of the Archdeacon Lane church, Leicester. The training

which he had received from his earliest years, fitted him, in an eminent degree, to minister to an intelligent and cultured people. His physical strength, however, proved to be unequal to the strain of regular ministerial and pastoral work, so that after leaving Leicester he did not undertake the charge of another church, but was engaged, till within about three months of his death, as an assistant teacher in a school at Ashton-under-Lyne, his native place. About two months since he returned to Leicester with the intention of residing there; but it was manifest to most of his friends that his stay here could not be a long one. His health, which for a long time had been gradually failing, was now such as to prevent his engaging in any work. After coming to Leicester he sank very rapidly; but as his physical strength ebbed away his faith and hope in relation to the future seemed to gather strength. His one regret was that he had been unable to do more for the Saviour whom he loved; but he knew that he had to do with One who not only died for our sin, but who is also full of gracious considerations for our weakness and infirmity, and in Him was all his hope. As we stood beside his bed and listened to his utterances of faith and hope, and saw how Christ sustained him amid his weakness, and pain, and in prospect of death, we were constrained to glorify the Saviour on his behalf. His kind and genial disposition endeared him to a large circle of friends, who, while sincerely mourning over their loss, as sincerely rejoice in the promotion conferred on our departed brother. W. E.

SCRAPS FROM THE EDITOR'S WASTE BASKET.

I. ALL BACKWARDS!-The Tories are showing their colours. They have fairly started on the backward road to perdition. They can only maintain their ground by corruption; and therefore they seek to legalize it in the army, although it is but yesterday it was ignominiously cast out. They have neither conscience nor shame. The Regimental Exchanges Bill is as base as it is gratuitous. It ought to be resisted by the vigorous use of every form of opposition the customs of the House permit. The Judicature Bill is given up at the bidding of a "caucus;" and the Cabinet put under the heel of a blind oligarchical Toryism. The Bills for preventing "Adulteration of Food," "Transfer of Land," etc., are framed on the principle of doing as little real good as possible. Toryism is hopelessly stultifying itself. So let it be!

II. "THE HOME MISSION SCHEME," described on pages 22 and 23 of our last Year Book, calls the attention of Conferences to the desirability of appointing members of the Executive Committee at their next meeting, who shall be in readiness to carry out the Unification of Home Mission Work according to a plan to be settled at our Wisbech gathering. This is the only part of our work that is not in a state of efficiency and progress. Our Foreign Mission thrives at home and abroad. We love it, and pray for it, and are intent on reinforcing the labourers in

the Orissa Field. The College is full and popular. The Magazine increases in its hold on the affections of the denomination. Only the Home Mission lags in the race. We must not rest till it is filled with life and efficiency, and made adequate to the demands of the hour.

III. CHAPEL PROPERTY RETURNS.As the time for our "General Assembly" is swiftly coming within sight, it is the more desirable that the returns asked for by the last Association concerning Chapel Property should be speedily made, (1.) so that a general statement may be based upon them for the Association, and (2.) that any suggestions for rendering property safe may be made without delay. In case any of the secretaries of churches have lost the schedules, they will find a copy appended to the "Year Book." Every return should be made by the 10th of May.

IV. "MIRACLES OF HEALING" AGAIN. -A correspondent recurs to this subject in the following apposite style:-I believe in the Bible, and I believe in the eleventh chapter of Mark; I also believe that the twenty-third verse is a true record of what our Lord said. Considering that we have there a whosoever and a whatsoever, the only hindrance to the working of miracles that appears to my eyes is our want of faith. A poor old woman last Sunday week asked God for some firewood, she also asked no one but God;

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