The separation of the eleventh century, thus confirmed in the fifteenth, has been maintained complete to the nineteenth century; and to-day the attempt to reconcile the Greek Church to the Roman antichristian claim of supremacy seems as hopeless, as to induce the Protestant Church to forget its protest and submit to antichrist.

This principle of antagonism between the Greek Church and the Roman is one in which Protestants must ever feel a lively interest; while to the Greek Church it is a central antagonism, which gathers around itself and crystallizes every other point of difference, and makes the Eastern a great counterpoise to the Western Church. Destroy this, and the others would dissolve away. This remaining, all the others, great and small, related with it, have significance and force.

ART. II. THE SUPERANNUATED, AND HOW THEY ARE CARED FOR.

WE propose to discuss the "theory and practice of the Methodist Church for the temporal relief of its worn-out ministers, and of the widows and children of deceased ministers. In the Discipline adopted at the organization of the Church in 1784 there is found the question, "How can we provide for superannuated preachers, and the widows of preachers?" The Wesleyan Conference, in England, had asked in substance the same question more than twenty years before. With some modifications in language, but the same in spirit, it has been repeated to this day by every General and Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The financial economy of the Methodist Church differs very materially from nearly all other Churches. In no features of that economy is the difference more marked than in its method of raising the means for the support of its ministers, and in the way it decides how much they shall be paid: for the former, depending on the voluntary contributions of the people; and determining the latter without dissent or agreement on the part of the minister. It requires, however, that those who

attend his preaching should have the ability, as well as a liberal disposition in order to furnish the Methodist itinerant a comfortable living. The low money status of a large part of them, in the early period of the Church, made his compensation very small. Nothing less than the persuasion, "Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel," could have induced any man, with such insignificant pay, to dare and to do what he accomplished. The assistants of Wesley in England, and of Asbury in America, took little thought " what they should eat, or what they should drink, or wherewithal they should be clothed." Moved by an impulse that they believed divine to declare a free salvation to every man that would hear it, their chief solicitude was, first, for an opportunity to utter their message, and then, if the work of the sower promised a spiritual harvest, that they might gather and preserve it in the Church garner. If successful in these, their desires and prayers were fulfilled. If, in addition, they received the welcome of hospitality, and the small contribution, mostly in kind, necessary to supply the scanty wants of a family, and to keep their plain wardrobe in decent repair, they were content. Lest they might be suspected of seeking the fleece rather than the flock, they adopted the minimum of living, rather than the maximum of getting. It is difficult to conceive how they made their expenses subordinate to the small amount they received; and if they could barely live on their scanty allowance when able to work, they had a sorry prospect when age or sickness disqualified them for effective duty. Many, in fear of the "dark day," located, to make to themselves "friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.'

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The newness of the Church, and the comparative youthfulness of its ministers, would place but few of these in the class of the worn-out for some years after its organization. But there was great wear and tear" in the excessive labor they performed, and in the privations to which they were exposed; and when the question was introduced into the Discipline in 1784, there were already some so disabled as to make it a practical one, requiring an immediate answer.

It was natural that the child in America should adopt the financial policy of the parent in England. The first provisions. of the Church here, to meet the wants of its disabled men,

were almost an exact counterpart of those employed more than twenty years before by the Wesleyans there. It will enable us to better appreciate the American history in this matter if we trace briefly what the English have done. In 1763 they formed an association of the members of the conference, on the principle of mutual assistance, called "The Preachers' Fund." Its conditions were that each preacher should pay into the treasury a guinea a year, and when he became superannuated he should receive annually as many guineas as he had performed years of effective service. The widows, if they needed it, were each to receive ten pounds a year. This "fund" was the chief, if not the only, provision for the worn-out preachers among the Wesleyans until about the year 1800. At that time it was modified in its conditions, requiring that every new member should pay ten pounds initiation, and three pounds annually thereafter, and also making provision for much larger distribution to its beneficiaries. The contributions of the people were then asked, for the first time, to increase the funds of this association. The inadequacy of the relief given to the "disabled," and probably the increase of pecuniary ability in the laity, led, the same year, to an organization among the laymen of London of the "Preachers' Friend Society," the design of which was to give "casual" aid to preachers that were destitute. It raised quite a respectable amount, discriminating in the recipients of its bounty. No new measures were introduced by the Wesleyan body until the year 1838, the centenary year of Methodism. In that year an "auxiliary fund" was created, from the memorial offerings of the people, and forty-five thousand dollars were invested, and subscriptions and legacies were invited to increase the funded amount. An annual collection was also ordered of sixpence from each member of the societies. The receipts from the "auxiliary fund" have steadily increased. In 1859 its income amounted to over sixty-two thousand dollars, and was disbursed to two hundred preachers and two hundred and sixty-nine widows; an average of about one hundred and thirty-three dollars to each.

The ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1784, adopted the mutual assistance policy. Their organization and name, with the amount required from each one on joining con

ference, and annually, and the sum proposed to be given each superannuated and to the widows and orphans, were nearly the same as the one existing in England. From the regulations published in the Discipline of that year, it is proba ble that much relief was expected from this fund, for there were appointed three treasurers, three clerks, and three inspectors, who should form a joint board for the direction of its affairs! As there are no reports in the minutes of the conference, except for two or three years, of the receipts or disbursements by this mutual arrangement, it is impossible to determine how far it was successful in giving aid to the disabled or the bereaved. From the efforts that were made in a few years, and in another way, to obtain funds for the same object, it is quite certain that it failed to meet all the requisitions made upon its treasury.

In reading the records of the earlier conferences, one cannot fail to be arrested by the large number who left the itinerant ministry, and became what is technically called located. The traditions of those times tell us that this arose chiefly from the insufficient support that they received, and the dark look before them, when, without health, they would be unable to provide for the necessities of their families. This habit of locating from necessity, and also the pressing wants of others who continued itinerant, created great solicitude in the General Conference of 1796, and led to the next attempt to answer the question, "What shall be done for the worn-out and the widows?" It was resolved, at this conference, to create a new fund. It has since been known as the "Chartered Fund." It was simply an incorporation of nine trustees, laymen, who should receive `and hold in trust such donations and legacies as would be paid them, and who should pay over the income thereof in equal sums to each Annual Conference. Earnest appeals were made to the Church in behalf of this fund, and liberal contributions were given in response to these appeals. To many it seemed the dawn of the golden age to disabled ministers. It proved, however, only a northern light, not the true aurora of the day. It will be seen that this fund differed from the old one for mutual relief, in that it brought aid to the minister from the generosity and love of the people, and not from a timely laying-by of his own funds against the rainy day. It also adopted

the questionable policy--a policy at that day more popular than at present-of funding a charity, and disbursing only its annual proceeds. It originated in the noble purpose to make comfortable the latter years of a class of men and women as worthy as any that have ever lived. But it never succeeded in meeting a tithe of the demand upon its treasury. From 1833, the year when its dividends first appear in the minutes, down to the present time, it has paid less than two per cent. a year of the amount of each claimant, allowing that none but the worn-out and widows were the recipients. How much less than this it must have been, as those who had not received their allowance as effective men had also a proportionate share from its funds!

About the same time there began to be small dividends from the profits of book publishing, that had been commenced under the direction of the General Conference a few years before. These dividends were distributed to the same beneficiaries as received from the Chartered Fund. Although, for some years after its commencement, the "Book Concern" was the "day of small things," it soon began to assume importance, and its dividends continually increased. For twenty years after 1832 its annual distribution to the conferences averaged over sixteen thousand dollars, and about eighteen dollars to each claimant. This method of obtaining relief for the necessitous differs from both the preceding ones. It was not a charity, like the Chartered Fund, for the purchaser of books who contributed to it received an equivalent for his money. It differed from the mutual relief fund, in that the seller of the books, the minister, had a primary and avowed design to circulate religious literature for the benefit of the purchaser, and not for ultimate profit to himself. It had something of the "funded" principle, but depending on the success of trade for dividends. It was a kind of contingent second percentage that the minister might receive if he should be brought into a certain class as a claimant.

The failure of many societies to pay the small disciplinary salary of their ministers required that some provision be made to meet this failure. For this, the General Conference of 1800 ordered that an annual collection should be made "where the people would be willing to contribute," "to make up the