lip American Jwstotefewi ISTew Series, Vol. VI, No. 9. Strictly in Advance $2.50, Otherwise $3. 1 Postage 20cts, to be paid where delivered. } gmratau THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1869. THE MINISTRY FOR THE CHURCH. The true ministry for the Church of the fu ture must come of the Churqh. The living ministry must be horn of the living Church. Wc hear in this day much said about “ live men,” “live ministers,” etc. The truth is, there can be no such “ live ministers” without a live church produce them. The ministry of any par ticular period will be very much what the Church, through the grace of God, has made them. When the Church is informed with divine life, and the fires of piety glow upon her altars, there are always more or less of her sons being brought forward to the high service of the Master in the gospel ministry. When Zion lan guishes and all her ways do mourn, she sends no “ laborers into the harvest.” An earnest, vigorous ministry must come out of an earnest, active Church. When the conse crated children are brought to the table of the Lord, they must feel the glow and warmth of Christian fellowship, and have constantly be fore them in their early Christian life, the ex ample of a church that holds religion to be a service, and not a simple state of passive enjoy ment. No implements of toil must lie unused ; no drones and idlers must be seen; “ work for the Master! Work!” must be the motto of the Church that successfully trains an earnest min istry. Of such a church must be born the men who shall proclaim Christ to the coming mil lions, if we would see the millenial day. All the real force the Church has, is in the spirit of her consecration to Christ and His work. And this force she must transfuse into the men sent forth of her, to preach the word. If there are men in the office of the ministry, quite useless, because unqualified for it, the Church is to a great extent responsible for this. They were such as she had. Had the Church been better, they had been more efficient. The local Church is truly rich, that has young men in the course of training for the Christian ministry. They are close to the heart, ->nd under tho watch and care of those whom, in some high sense, they are to represent in the pulpit. They are cherished and brought up in the families of the Church; they catch her spirit and breathe her life. And at length, when God calls them into His service, they go forth as living witnesses of the fidelity, earnestness and success of the Church of which they were born. The piety, life and activity of each church should im pel her sons to ask “ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ?” As “ not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble, are called,” the Church should not only give her sons, but stand by them, amidst the trials and labors of preparation for their high and holy mission. Let every church pray the Lord of the harvest, that some of her tnon, children may go forth into the harvest; and the Lord, hearing these petitions, shall return four-fold blessings into her own bosom, Let this highest wealth of the Church— her sons —be oonseorated, and the same spirit, which so consecrates, will lead these people of God to pour out thoir money without reserve. It is a very cheap thing to give a few paltry dollars to educate the sons of other people, but it costs something to give ottr own. But let no church, nor Christian, strive to bring themselves out from the solemn responsibility of yielding the finest and ohoicest of the flock to the service of (he Master. And let Christians everywhere settle this in their hearts, that if the ministry of the future are to go forth as the flaming messen gers of mercy, love and power, they must go from a church baptized with that same spirit from on high. God is graciously visiting many of His churches, and calling scores and hundreds into His spiritual kingdom. Are there not many of the young men —the hoys —whose hearts are touched by the love of Christ, who by the pray erful oonseoration of the people of God, will yet stand in the high places of power, and preach Jesus to a perishing world ? Alas 1 how tho land mourns and the harvest suffers, for the lack of consecrated men to preach Christ and His Cross! The Church has the men and the means to furnish them for the work. Will she rise to her high privilege, and so enrich the world, and honor Him who is Head over all things? G - F ' Rev. W. F. Findley, P D., was received from the Presbytery of Miami, by the Presbytery ® Newark, Peb. 22, and arrangements were made for his installation as pastor of the Central church of Newark, March 10th. Rev. Clarence Eddy was also received from the Presbytery of North River, and arrange ments were made for his installation as pastor of the new church at Woodside, on Weclnesday evening, March 3d. 15ju1y69 L T 0 THE CHIEF. The excitement through which the country passed in securing as its next President, a man in whom it could put confidence, having subsi ded three months ago, it now views Bis inaugur ation with calm satisfaction. Nay, there is a pe culiar element of quiet and rest in the national mind to-day, which might seem almost unbe coming, certainly unlike us as a demonstrative people, at the elevation of our most distinguished military man to the Executive chair. And yet it is a state of mind of the happiest significance and propriety. It is because the people regard President Grant as the embodiment of their vic torious purpose to have a righteous peace and a solid restoration of order on the principles of justice. ' It is because Grant in the Presidency is the coup de grace of the .rebellion, to which the assassination of Mr. Lincoln gave a four years longer existence, and indefinite hopes for the' four years beyond it. It is because the common sense, and self-respect and self-preservative in stincts of the nation have, in the hands of Gen eral Grant, gathered up the reins of power which hung so loosely in the hands of his reck less un-American predecessor. It is because in place of an obscure civilian, who was forever contending with the people and their represen tatives, and arrogating to himself dangerous and dictatorial powers, we have a' military officer of unsurpassed reputation, who has Over borne his honors meekly, and has shown a most punctilious regard for the lines which bound his own and other departments of public duty, and whoso convictions and principles are in substantial ac cord with those of the co-ordinate branch of the Government. There is a very active and famous class of persons in the country; however, who' do. not share in the general content and quiet, albeit they belong to the party which comes into power with President Grant. They are-the class of professional politicians; some of them good men, but a vast body of them men without principle or patriotism ; men who have no other real inter est in the country or the Government but to make it a means of their own aggrandizement; men whose object in aiding in the election of this or that man, is nothing but a share of the spoils of office, a chance at ttie I: ptibK<r trefwuvy j nien whose whole philosophy of the management of the various departments of the Government is bounded by its relations to the success of their party ; the sort of men who have exercised the highest degree of influence in the White House during the past four years. ; These men and the' Southern rebels are distressed and chop-fallen, it is hard to tell which the most so, at the elevation of General Grant to the Presidency. He listens respectfully to their advice, but he shuts them out of his counsels. He did not buy his election by any mortgage of his manhood or indepen dence to these chafferers in the life and weal of a great nation, and they can make nothing of him now. But this is only another reason for the deep contentment of the people with their new President. They believe they have a man in office and not a mere tool. A man with patriotic instincts and large purposes of good to the whole country, and not the mere puppet of party in triguers ; a man of firm will, of unflinching eour age, of purity of aim; not blindly obstinate, hut utterly unmanageable for private ends ; a man who, by bringing to a close a rebellion which had baffled all the skill and resources of the nation, revealed his great administrative ability, and above all, his unsurpassed wisdom andgood sense in the selection of his own coadjutors and aids in the work. Welcome then, 0 most fortunate of Ameri cans 1 whose sword has saved your country in its direst peril, to the sect of civil power. You have passed from the one station to the other with the dignity of Washington. You have shown in one position, that you esteemed the highest honors and greatest powers as but so many opportunities to render your country the oreatest and most disinterested services. We have the best reason to hope that you will com plete the likeness to the Father of his Country, by making a like disinterested use of the exal ted civil position to which you have risen. Put your trust in God and not in party or party man agers. Set your face with all its lines of in flexible rigor against the corruption which has thriven rank and poisonous in every corner of the previous administration. Let every one know that an administration has come into power resolved on honest dealing with all our creditors, and determined on meting out judgment -to the full upon all fraudulent and dishonest debtors. God give you the strength of Hercules to clean out the Augean stables, and to create-through all the branches of government such a wholesome atmosphere, that fraud, and villainy, and''unscru pulous ambition may miss their vital elements PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1869. lo ; yion and disappear or die. We do not count on per fection, but our prayer is that the glory of your victory at Appomattox Court House, by which four years of war was closed, may be eclipsed by peaceful victories of the coming four years of your administration. If the Emperor of the French, as reported in sensation telegrams, is preparing rooms in the Tuilleries for the reception of Andrew John son, it must be designed as a skilful and venom-, ous insult to the American people. If those apartments are to be adjacent to those of the ex-Queen Isabella, there will be so mnch fitness in the association that either the Emperor or the telegrapher is perpetrating upon Mr. Johnson, a vast, historical joke. For the two rulers of the present day among civilized people, who have been most discreditable to their positions, from their own private characters, their despotic instincts, their blind adherence.to the effete preju dices and institutions of the past., their lack of sympathy with the living will and high moral purpose of the people, their complacency with corruption and leniency towards crime, were exactly the late President of the United States and the-late Queen of Spain. The one was suddenly driven from her place after long endurance, by a peaceful but sweeping popular revolution; the other could scarcely be tolerated by the indignant free people of the Republic, whom he had betrayed, until the brief period came round, when, by the regular methods of the ballot-box, he could at last be got rid of. Nothing saved him from being deposed, in the regular methods of impeachment, a year ago, hut the brevity of his alotted term of office. : * The American people cannot he too, thankful that they are peacefully rid of by. far the worst and the unworthiest person that has. ever occu pied the Executive chair. The sympathy of a French potentate, who openly dared, to trample upon the will of the people, and overturn their free institutions, is no obscure intimation of what may have been concealed in the heart, in the unripened but real purpose, of the magistrate whose characteristic oSocial acts were vetoes of good laws, and pardons of bad men. But if re volution was never seriously meditated by the man, who described the lawful body of the na tion’s representatives as hanging'ou the- verge of a government, we are most glad and thankful to be rid of the man who, alone, of all Americans so honored, entered tipsy upon his high office, and for whose frequent offensive acts the best excuse that could be rendered by his friends was intoxication; who by his open and scandalous sympathy with the rebellion, galvanized it into a life and activity, brief, but fruitful in cruelty, and crime, and bloodshed, and nearly broke down the national sentiment of loyalty and jus tice which had grown out of the struggle; whose administration lias made a mockery of courts of law, by issuing pardons, and proclaiming amnesty before trials commenced; who has let loose ninety-seven of the one hundred counterfeiters convicted during his term, and has made nuga tory all attempts at purifying the public service and strengthening the national credit by similar official manifestations of sympathy with revenue defrauders, mail-robbers, whisky-rings, and every class of public offenders; who, finally, is de scribed by those who know him, as a vulgar, coarse-minded infidel, of the Tom Paine school. We don’t wonder at all at General Grant’s re luctance to he seen in his company to-day. Na poleon 111 and Ex-Queen Isabella, may have un disturbed enjoyment of it if they wish, for the Amer ican people, never indeed having chosen such a ruler, feel that they have been severely and wholesomely taught to guard diligently against the chance of any of his sort ever entering upon a high office again. Thus, to borrow the senti ment of a popular. magazine-writer, Mr. John son’s term of office will be one of the best illus trations of the Moral Uses of Dark Things. The Evangelist, which, in all the discussion on Re-union, has visibly shrunk from the open and hearty advocacy of New School liberty of opinion in the re-united Church, and which, as the representative paper in our Church is, in no small measure, responsible for the want of;tone in our body on the subject, seems, in these latter days of the discussion, to have: discovered that there is a point beyond which concession to-the rigid spirit of the other body cannot go. We quote from its issue of February 11th, with. its own’italics s “ But. the Tenth Article and-the explanatory clauses in the First, rest both on a foundation, of their own, and must, we think, staud or fall to gether. Were there no other reason for this conclusion,. mutual conciliation and fraternal fair ness'mahife'stly demand it. There is a minority in both bodies, who rhave ! never -been entirely satisfied with the -basis recommended-by the two Assemblies. In the Old School body the dissent centres on the explanatory causes in the First Article—-in the New upon the agreement on the Tenth. If the former are to be removed to meet the wishes of the one party;" the latter should be in deference to the opinions of the other. Or are the dissentient brethren of the Old School determined to demand every concession to be made to them, and to make none to their breth ren of the other body ? If that be. the case, and the friends of Re-union in that body are disposed to yield to the demand, the sooner we understand it the better; We want no Re-union on such terms. Neither our peace, nor our usefulness, nor our Christian improvement, could be promo ted by it. Re-union must be given over to an other and better generation. It is of no use to pursue it further in ours. But we believe other wise. And in that belief we have been and are disposed to make every proper concession in our power. The First Article in the basis, as pro posed in 1867, satisfied us, and our Assembly unanimously adopted it. It was altered in 1868 by the insertion of the two amendments to meet the wishes of our Old- School brethren. We are willing, if they will show .the same spirit, to meet them again by throwing out what.was then in serted, and take the doctrinal and ecclesiastical Standards “pure and simple.” But there is a limit to this soft of thing. We believe there is among the great majority in both branches of the Church a strong yearning for Union. Let us settle upon something soon, aud go about the great work of our Master—united if we can, as separate Churches if we must.” Late as they are, these declarations are not without their value and significance. The N. IF. Presbyterian (0. S) says: “Nothing has perhaps occurred more calculat ed to excite a feeling of distrust in the minds of our church, than some of the statements of this article.” Neither The Evangelist nor ourselves wish to excite distrust in the minds of our fair-thinking brethren, but we rejoice that our cotemporary in New York is aiding in this important work of opening the eyes of the more rigid to the true sentiment and principles of our own people. INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. Last week we said a word about Dorcas socie ties, anil the work they have attempted to do for the relief of the poor. Let not anything we have said be construed as inveighing against the worthy Christian ladies who conduct these societies, oftentimes with great energy. .Their motives are excellent, and sometimes .the results are gobd. "We only say, we doubt the wisdom in this age of the,world, and in our large cities, where the poor congregate, of giving them clo thing and food. In .extreme eases this may be necessary. But, ordinarily, would it not be bet ter to provide them with work, and counsel and :encourage them, and now and then, if needs be, lend them adittle money ? This would increase their self-respeot, and stimulate them to healthy effort. Let me now illustrate this by introducing you to an Industrial School, which was substituted, early in the winter, in one of our churches for the old Dorcas : Society. The very same ladies who conducted the one, organized the other. Instead of meeting on Wednesday afternoon, to make garments to give to the poor, they chose Satnrday afternoon. The Sabbath school room was opened. The girls were invited to come at 2 o’clock, and stay until 4 o’clock. At first only a few came, for it was a new, thing, and they were shy. But each week the number in creased, until it was evident the school was be coming popular. The First Directress presides, and the meeting is opened with -a brief prayer, and: singing a lively, familiar hymn. The Sec ond .Directress superintends the preparation of work for sewing. In this she is assisted by the managers. The Secretary and Treasurer calls the roll, and receives any monies brought in. Each class has a teacher, who, at a given Bignal, opens her box. Oat fly thread, needles, thimbles, and soon thegbusy little hands are nimbly at work. Here is little Maggie, who wants an apron to wear. Teacher tells the Managers. They cut it out, and, with the assistance of teacher, Mag gie, although she vis a wee thing, of only seven years, makes it. There, it is done, and put on I The little girl had earned ten cents by doing, an errand, and had given this to the Treasurer. The bit of calico, from which the apron is made, cost only six cents. So Maggie has four, cents still to her credit, and- walks away the proud possessor of a garment which she feels she has purchased with her own money, and made with her own hands! Was not this better than to give it to her ? Undoubtedly. This is a great event in Maggie’s life. She now begins to rise. She will not be a pauper, depending upon others, and disrespectfully calling them trotters. Xn another class sits Alice Jones. She is a spry girl, abont twelve years old.- Her father is' a miserable drunkard. 5 Her mother is a steady, but broken-down Their home is wreteh- n-rici hr,.; G-enesee Evangelist, 3STo. 1189. j Home & Foreign Miss. $2.00. 1 Address: 1334 Chestnut Street. ed enough. Two older Bisters, sixteen and eighteen years old, '.used to attend Sabbath school and church, but the mother says they will net now go to either, because they have been helped so often by the Dorcas ladies, they are afraid they will be recognized. Thus we see, in this case, the Dorcas Society has defeated it self. Poor Mrs. Jones, the washer-woman, has a good mind. She sees the principle involved. And when Mrs. Smith invites her to send Alice to the-Industrial School, she is more than wil ling. She is much pleased. She is in hopes Alice will do better than the older sisters have. Alice, too, is pleased. Before Saturday comes, she has earned twenty cents by washing steps. Her ambition is aroused. Every week she brings some money which she has earned, or her mother has saved for her. She is quick and in dustrious, and in the course of the winter she has made and paid for four garments, and will soon have the fifth. She is neatly and veil clad. She has a warm body and a cheerful heart. Alice is looking up. She will soon be able to help herself. She will be a thrifty woman, and, if she gets married, will be able to carry a small fortune in her hands to her husband, and by her neatness and industry may keep him from the grog-shop. Who can predict the future of Alice Jones? She may yet be mistress of the White House, a result which could hardly happen if she was a pensioner of the Dorcas Society, in stead of a pupil in the Industrial School. This school is only in its infancy, but we be lieve it is on the right basis, and the prospect is that the ladies who conduct it will accomplish more fccording to this system in one year, than they could in the old way in a generation. If you don’t think we are imposiug on you, dear Mr. Editor, and your readers, perhaps we will next week continue the subject. There is a religious, as well as social and domestic side to this question, “ How to benefit the poor.” [A “live” subject, and practically treated. Yes I we can well afford to hear more about it. ■ —Editob-in-Chief.] The Eoangelist has at last attained an un qualified position among the religious newspapers of the country. The M. W. Presbyterian says of a recent editorial in our cotemporary: “ Had it appeared in the American Pkesbytebian no one would have been surprised.” We con gratulate the Eoangelist on its' reception of this first-class card, and hope it will wear its unex pected honors meekly. • A story has got afloat in regard to the ex cellent President of Princeton College, Dr. Me- Cosh, which attributes to him a habit far more common among respectable clergymen of Great Britain and Ireland than with us, that of using intoxicating drink as a 1 beverage. We did not like the story told of one holding such a position of influence towards the young men of America, and we confess we dislike Dr. Prime’s defence almost as much. He writes to the Evening Post that Dr. MeCosh never drinks “ except on those rare occasions when good sense or medical advice dictate its propriety.” This is anything but a frank and satisfactory denial. “ Good sense,” at this day, in this country, dictates not the proprie ty of occasional drinking, but of total absti nence. The young ladies of Dover, Wayne county, Ind., have formed a society for the redemption of young men from bad habits. Each of the members has pledged herself not to receive the attentions of any young man who uses liquor, tobacco, or profane language. This is Woman’s Eights in a most wholesome and practical direc tion. Mr. Beecher’s Lecture on Amusements was, like most of his efforts, unsound and unspiritual in its philosophy, perilous in some few of its ad missions, depreciating the Church, and cheering on —very mildly—its detractors, yet in its world ly, and highest temporal bearings, sound and healthful. Amusement he takes in the broadest sense as that which gives Wholesome recreation j the oiit-door and the muscular, are his decided prefer ence; the fashionable amusements, the in-door gay eties, the late hours, the excesses of fashionable society, he denounces as unworthy the name of ra tional amusements, and as positively injurious, as condemned by common sense, before we get to the bar of conscience. The theatre he pro nounces an anachronism, and says, coarsely but pointedly, that a hen trying to make something, out of addled eggs is wise in comparison with those who are trying to reform the theatre and the race-course. He approves of ten, pins and billiards when dissociated from-, vice, and thinks the Y. M. C. A. should take. them.under their ; patronage. , , ' ; CURRENT TOPICS.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers