if the women’s movement expresses, as it undoubtedly does, a spiritual aspiration, i think the same may be said with perhaps equal force of the labor movements in western countries. that many working-men have been practically unable to develop the higher side of their nature, on account of the conditions of labor, is generally admitted. the movement for higher wages and better conditions of work is, after all, something more than the expression of a grievance against capital. there is the deep yearning for a fuller life. this great aspiration the churches should recognize and seek to meet. speaking for my own country, i can say that one of the great obstacles with which the churches are confronted in dealing with the working-men 100is the suspicion of the mercenary spirit. to the workingman, the clergyman is paid to do a certain job and must justify his existence. of course this is a prejudice which is soon removed when the man gets into such personal relations with the minister as to feel the heartbeat of a true friendship, but often these personal relationships are hindered through the prejudice referred to. do not these facts suggest that there is a need for one section of the church which has not this disability and whose ministers are all laymen?
and this brings me to the further thought of the need for this very testimony on the mission field to-day. the other day in india a missionary of another society said to me, “whatever you friends do, do not give up your principles in regard to a free ministry,” and he proceeded to quote to me a case of some well-to-do young men whose mother was an earnest christian woman. she, it appeared, had been urged to take up regular christian work, and they had constantly stood in the way. when pressed as to the reason for such 101action, they informed the missionary that they could not allow their mother to take up christian work because the neighbors would at once say that they could not afford to keep her; so intimately were the ideas of christian work and the payment of a salary connected in the minds of the indians. how often do we hear the gibe flung at christian missions that their converts are all “rice christians!” the element of truth in the slander of course is this—that so many of the best are called to direct religious work for which they receive regular payment. at a conference of leading christians held recently, a strong representation was made to the foreigners present, and through them to the home boards, to the effect that missionaries should lay greater emphasis on the calling of christians into business life and cease to so state the problem of christian service as to lead to the inevitable conclusion that the only place for the most consecrated christians was the ministry. the great need, in fact, is that there should be a vast increase of voluntary workers; that the 102idea of “every christian a missionary” should permeate the whole church, both at home and abroad. we have seen recently that wonderful results can flow when this ideal dominates the church, as in the history of the last ten years in korea.
now friends have a position of peculiar strength in this matter and one which in england has been nobly used, especially through the adult school movement.
i am not here to say that the practice of friends needs no modification, in view of the special circumstances either of missionary work abroad or of the conditions of a new country like this; but i do most emphatically believe that friends have here a great testimony and one which is needed by the whole christian church.
i am not maintaining that there is no place for the supported minister. you in america have found for him a larger place, in the special conditions of your life, than we have among friends in england; but, even here, i am persuaded that you recognize to the full the primary thought that a 103man is not paid for his services or in proportion thereto, but that he is simply maintained in order that he may fulfil the ministry which has been entrusted to him.
is there not also great value in the insistence upon the fact that the ministry of the church is not dependent upon the laying on of hands, or any other outward ceremony? i should like to quote again from the west china document to which i have already referred, under the heading of “ministry.”
“1. the supreme and only indispensable qualification for the christian ministry is the divine call, habitually responded to. any man or woman so used of god is thereby constituted a christian minister.
“2. the part of the church is to recognize such ministers.”
it is not only the mere fact of his salary which makes the workingman shun the parson. it is the thought of a class set apart, different from the ordinary man in the street. are we making full use of the advantage we possess through having our 104business men engaged in the active ministry of the church? if we have broken down the barrier between lay and cleric, have we not at the same time done something to remove the barrier between labor and the church?
the church, then, needs to be reminded perpetually that the ministry is not the work of a class but of all, and that the service of christ is not a profession but a free-will offering.
