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$1,604,124 40 The grants for current expenses in the colleges are made mainly from the offerings of the churches. The increased endowments are raised largely in the college fields, and through the strong service of the presidents.

WHAT DID THE COLLEGES ACCOMPLISH DURING THE SAME PERIOD FOR THEMSELVES?

Great things-greater than ever before: debts paid, income increased, new buildings, better equipment, and productive endowment signalized the best year they ever had. The work done by their presidents is beyond praise.

WHAT IS

THE RESULTING AND PRESSING

NEED? When college officers are working in this way for permanent improvement, it is impossible for them to carry on the usual canvass for funds for current expenses. Here, therefore, is the Church's present opportunity; to give liberally for current support, and for the deficit that every developing college must show so that the hands of the college workers may be free for the greater task that present and national prosperity makes possible—that it nakes, for every college president, the special and urgent duty of the hour.

WHAT NEW FIELDS AWAIT US? New institutions are rising, demanded by the needs of newer fields. In Florida a college has just ended its first year. Colorado is taking final steps preparatory to the begin

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ning of its own Presbyterian college work. In Montana, the college that was for years the hope of its Synod, but whose work was later hampered and ended, has been reopened for a new and most urgently needed life. In other States and Territories there is need that is still unanswered by any effort of our Church.

In addition to all this, the union with the Cumberland Church brings a great and most inviting opportunity. Eight colleges will come into our denomination, to hold the same relation to Church and Synods that the Presbyterian colleges have held, to be upon the same basis of service and co-operation. A great door and effectual is open to us, and we must enter in.

FOR WHAT THINGS WILL THE COLLEGE BOARD IN ALL ITS WORK INVARIABLY STAND?

(a) Thorough College Work.-In this twentieth century of Christian progress, the Presbyterian Church will not ask a community to support a college unless that college has high ideals and is constantly advancing.

(b) Evangelistic Purpose. The College Conference at Des Moines unanimously adopted the following:

"The Christian college has a distinct mission; its grade of scholarship should be the highest and its advantages the best possible; but more important than this should be the effort to foster the religious moral life of the student. This work is Christian education. Every member of the Faculty should be a believer, with a decided faith. All subjects should be taught from the Christian point of view, and the Christian spirit should be so fostered that every unconverted student may be won to Christ; that all students may be led to a better consecration to His cause, and their vision so enlarged that the work of Christ and the world's need may incite them to a higher character and larger efficiency in Christ's service."

(c) Required Study of the Bible.-The College Conference and The College Board have agreed that the minimum requirement for Bible study shall be 144 hours during the four years, thirty-six in each college year, distributed according to the judgment of the Faculty. Most of our colleges have a much greater requirement than this, but 144 hours is the minimum, below which our colleges cannot go and continue to receive the support of The College Board.

ERSKINE N. WHITE, D.D., SECRETARY

The Assembly's Rules

No request comes more frequently to the office of the Board than the plea that owing to exceptional circumstances, the rules of the Board be waived in one or more particulars.

In a certain sense every case is to those most deeply interested an "exceptional case." The field is unusually important; the promise of growth in the near future is very bright; the number of active adherents is small; the constituency is young and new and heavily burdened with the need of paying for homes recently acquired; the cost of building is greater than was expected; it is important that the church build for the future. These are the most common of the reasons given which make the case an "exceptional" one, and yet to any one acquainted with the planting of churches in new communities, it is evident that these conditions are in some degree the common property of all.

Yet it is natural and proper that the little band struggling heroically to maintain its organization and secure a church home should consider its case "exceptional;" indeed not to do so would argue a want of enthusiasm or devotion.

What then shall the Board reply to such frequent pleas?

First. And most obviously, it must be replied that the rules which it is asked to waive are not the rules of the Board, but are either embodied in its charter, or are framed for its guidance by the General Assembly. It is evident therefore that it has no power to respond affirmatively to such requests. The writer recalls a conversation he once had with a gentleman, who most persistently urged that exception should be made in the case he represented. Finally becoming a little impatient, if not indignant at the want of response, the petitioner exclaimed somewhat vehemently, "You could set aside these rules if you wanted to do so.' The following brief conversation followed:

"What business are you engaged in?" "I am the agent of the X- Manufacturing Company." "Does the company give you directions as to how you shall transact business for it and to what extent you may use your discretion?" "Yes! It frequently, does so." "Then, having received explicit instructions, I suppose you feel entirely at liberty to violate them and commit your principal to any arrangement that a possible customer may ask." "No! (slowly and hesitatingly). I cannot say I do-oh! ah! yes! I see your 'point.'" Thus the conversation ended pleasantly and our friend having seen the point no longer criticized the inability of the Board to meet his wishes.

It is evident that as the Board is simply the agent of the Church speaking through its General Assembly, the Board, were it to break the rules established for its administration of the funds committed to it, it would be recreant to its obligations and justly liable to be called to account and censured by the Assembly to which it annually reports.

Secondly. It is to be remembered that all the rules laid down by the Assembly for the administration of these funds, have been very carefully considered and framed so as to insure their most equitable division possible among the churches needing aid in securing homes. The more important of these rules are as follows:

1. The grant from the General Fund shall not exceed one-third of the value of the property, including the lot. As in a majority of cases the lot in these young towns is secured either as a gift or at a nominal price, this provision of a possible one-third usually means considerably more than one-third of the money actually needed-especially as where material or labor is volunteered, the value of such material or worth of such labor may be accounted as if it were a cash subscription at the market

price.

2. In all ordinary cases the grant shall not exceed $1,000.

The word "ordinary" qualifying this rule prevents it from being absolute and yet the cases are very few where in a young, newly organized community, a building costing more than $3,000 is actually needed; or if needed, it indicates a community of sufficient strength to provide for itself more than two-thirds of the cost of the edifice. Thus the cases are very few in which the Board feels at liberty to exceed what the Assembly names as the ordinary maximum.

3. The church must hold title to the property by a deed in "fee-simple"-that is to say, by a deed which is not hampered or limited by provisions that under penalty of a reversion of the title to the grantor prevent the future free use of the land for any legitimate purpose.

This rule is necessary so as to ensure the legal value of the mortgage which the Board must always take to provide against the failure of the church or the alienation of the property. This mortgage is no burden upon the church so long as it lives and does its work, for the lien calls for no interest and does not mature unless the church is dissolved or abandons its property. In such case the mortgage is due and with interest. But it is evident that this mortgage would be practically worthless if the deed provided that if the land ceased to be used for church purposes the title in it would revert to the grantor; for if in such case the Board attempted to claim possession under foreclosure of its mortgage, it would find that by the provisions of the deed, the land had already become the property of the grantor and could not be reached.

The importance of this rule will be recognized when it is remembered that every year the Board recovers several thousands of dollars under the provisions of the mortgages it secures. There are certain extreme cases in which the Assembly permits the Board to waive this rule if security can be assured.

4. The Board cannot advance the money which it has voted as a grant, until the trustees of the church certify that the entire amount. less the grant of the Board, needed to com

plete the building without debt has been actually collected.

This rule acts as a needed stimulus to bring in the full amount subscribed. If this is uncollected at the time the building is complete all experience shows that it is only too liable to remain uncollected indefinitely, leaving the church with a debt that weighs heavily upon it, and rendering the property liable to be subjected to a "builder's lien" which would take precedence of the mortgage given to the Board.

Thirdly. It is evident that if in its sympathetic interest in one or another particularly eloquent appeal, the Board were permitted to ignore the rules of the Assembly it would seem very unfair were it to decline to do so in the other cases which presented themselves. While it is true that it might itself see a difference in the conditions seeming to justify a distinction, it would doubtless find that the church discriminated against would entirely fail to understand why it was not entitled in diplomatic phrase to be put upon a footing "accorded to the most favored 'nations.'"

The liability to misunderstanding and disappointment would be entirely removed, were the officers of the church making application to the Board, careful to familiarize themselves with the plan and rules of the Assembly and frame their plans accordingly, remembering that the inability of the Board to waive these rules arises not from any want of appreciation of the needs of the church in question or of the self-sacrificing efforts of its members, but from the Board's responsibility to the Assembly and the Church as a whole, which has appointed it as agent and to which it must render account.

San Jose-At the close of the morning service in the Jose Theater, Sunday, June 17, the First Church took a freewill offering for building a new edifice to take the place of the one destroyed by the recent earthquake, and the amount on the plates in cash and pledges was $12,395. No one was asked for any specified amount; there was no soliciting; all was sponAnd the amount given, in view of the wholesale loss of property suffered by the congregation, attests the grit and loyalty of this historic church.

taneous.

Board for Freedmen

EDWARD P. COWAN, D. D., SECRETARY.

Address Before the General Assembly,
Des Moines, Iowa, 1906

By Rev. Russel Taylor, Pastor of Bethel and St. Luke's Colored Presbyterian Church,
Tennessee.

To be here with men, some of whom have spent a quarter, a third and a half century or more in the services of the Master, is indeed deemed a rare privilege

We grow by association. A mind void of learning will, by constant association with other minds, in time manifest much training. So while we may meet twice or thrice a year in our separate presbyteries and synods, thereby developing our strength and cultivating our knowledge of the methods of administration in this our beloved Church, it is good for us to meet once a year in these assemblies together that we may see how far we have come and note how much further we shall need to go before we reach the goal whereunto you have attained.

As a child loves to walk alone, but dislikes to have the parent get too far away, so we rejoice in the fact that we can walk some by ourselves but don't be surprised if we should cry out if at this stage you should attempt to get entirely away from us.

The position and condition of the Negro race in America is peculiar.

While a slave, some, perhaps a majority of their masters felt responsible for his religious welfare. When he was made free, however, he was largely left to his own religious training. Consequently those churches that do not insist upon a trained ministry, unfortunately secured by far the greater portion of the "Freedmen." Reconstruction days when a class of politicians were instilling into the Negroes the vain hope of becoming governors, senators, judges, etc., very naturally the Negroes

In

themselves would also demand preachers of their own race. History shows that those Churches that at that time yielded to that demand secured and to-day hold the greater following from the Negro race.

This demand for preachers of their own race could not be immediately supplied, neither by the Presbyterian nor any other Church holding to the same high standard of the ministry. Hence the more than 10,000 colored people who were members of our churches before freedom were lost to us at the close of the war.

The white constituency of the South, more zealous for a pure State, perhaps than a pure Church, allowed the Negro to govern his church as he chose so long as he did not interfere with the State.

Thus the great majority of the former slaves were left to their own religious leadership. Held unfit to lead in an earthly kingdom, yet, by a strange logic they were left to guide and control in the Kingdom of Heaven.

It results, therefore, that our Church has had to face a peculiar condition on these fields. On foreign fields the heathen only have to be reached. On these Southern fields there may be a little heathenism, but it is clothed in a garb of pseudo-Christianity which in many respects is harder to dea with than pure, unadulterated heathenism.

While our Church was preparing a ministry for these people, certain other communions were building chapels and churches and gathering in the people. Hence to-day hear the complaint that the Negro doesn't take to Presbyterianism. If that be

we

true it is because the Presbyterian Church let him get too far away. And if that Church would redeem herself for the past she must from henceforth not only take to the Negro but stick to him.

If the early white settlers, with centuries of civilization behind them, needed the influence of a trained ministry in their midst, how much more does the black man in his pioneer stage need the same.

That was a strong plea made on the floor of this Assembly for the betterment of the indigent, idle Negro that goes to make up the criminal class in our cities. I acquiesce in all that was said for his uplift. But I would, if possible, put in a stronger plea for the Negro who remains in the rural districts and the villages. For after all, from the sons of the soil is coming the element that goes to make up the substantial portion not only of the Church, but also of the State. And whatever degree of success, of independence this race ever attains will be measured by the extent that it remains a tiller and an owner of the soil. This headlong rush to the cities is the curse of the race. To my mind, therefore, there can be no better expenditure of money than to place our weak rural churches and schools on a substantial, living basis.

In these districts it is coming to pass that three or four district schools are combined in one, the combined school runs only five or six months, and, as a rule, with poorly qualified teachers. By wise and tactful procedure our village churches can control these schools, and, by combination with the parochial schools now required, create a good school and under Presbyterian influence. As it was in the early settlements of our country, so it is now in the rural districts of the fields under this Board, the Presbyterian minister is often the only educated person in a community of considerable extent. If his house can be a model house, his church a model church in that community, there will arise a social center of attraction that will tend to keep pure boys and pure girls from the vile and poisonous atmosphere of the cities.

We believe in self-support. Our churches are certainly kept alive to the duty of giving. But with all this, for many years to come, the minister under the Freedmen's Board in the rural districts must be nothing but a missionary pure and simple. Yet far better give us an earnest, God-fearing educated ministry the full means for his support on these fields than let our churches die and the people perish for the want of a pure gospel taught not only by precept but also by worthy example.

The

This is an era of great opportunity for the work of this Board. It is gratifying to note the advance in gifts to the Board. It seems indicative of the confidence the great Church at large has in the new regime set in action at the last Assembly. This confidence is needed. The spirit of union is in the air! Arrangements should be made for the consolidating of the 42,000 or more members of the Colored Cumberland Presbyterian Church with our Church. When this is consummated new conditions will obtain. ministry in that Church are for the most part uneducated. They need an educated ministry. Great tact must needs be exercised to secure and hold them and at the same time keep up our standard. Surely our Church, the most Catholic of all churches, will not suffer these 42,000 to be lost in the great ocean of other communions as were the ten thousand at the close of the war!-communions that are far less able than we to care for them.

As to the ultimate welfare of my race I have no fears. Freedom for the Negro is like salvation to the whole human race; though freely given it must be worked out. And my race will never attain unto the highest sphere of freedom until the doctrines of industry, economy, religious and moral worth become popular among us. And who is better prepared to teach and practice these doctrines for the benefit of the race than the faithful missionary of the Board? And who is more able to send him than the constituency of this General Assembly?

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