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something more; hence there is a welldefined movement to create and operate sound pension plans for the ministers and their dependents. The schemes have all been framed under actuarial guidance, but they vary so radically in structure and detail that anything approaching criticism would be unwise and unfair. It may be said that any plan which will work is sound, and the workability of a particular scheme must be judged with full cognizance of the ecclesiastical polity through which it is to be realized. For instance, it is obvious that a prospectus written for a firmly knit organization such as the Protestant Episcopal Church must be strikingly different from that devised for the independent communities of Congregationalism. These various plans also are either in the incubation stage or are only a little way advanced in development; their consummation will depend entirely upon whether or not the leading laymen of each denomination are willing to allow their new industrial conscience to apply itself to their church relationships; for there is not a shadow of doubt that each denomination has wealth ample for an easy and swift realization of the plan proposed.

The Baptist Church (Northern) has had local organizations for relief, but only recently has a National Board been created. An endowment is rapidly growing, and altogether nearly $2,000,000 is held in the various funds of the denomination. This relief is pure charity, distributed not as a matter of justice, but on the basis of need as proved by the claimant. In 1914, the Northern Baptist Convention brought forward a 'Proposed Plan for the Pensioning of Baptist Ministers.' Ministers are to pay annual premiums scaled to age, sufficient to earn annuities of one hundred dollars by the time they are sixty-five years old, and the church

at large proposes to increase this annuity to a maximum of $500, as soon as it can secure the necessary funds. Lesser benefits are offered to disabled men; and lesser still to widows and orphans. The relation is strictly contractual; the Church agrees to do a certain thing on condition that the minister does a certain thing. Those ministers who elect to enter the scheme purchase annuity insurance at eighty per cent discount a feature that follows the plans of the Congregational and Presbyterian churches. This pension scheme, however, is moving slowly, as the relief feature is being the more stressed at present.

"To provide an orderly, uniform and reasonably adequate old-age annuity based on actuarial principles, with collateral benefits for their families in case of death or disability,' is the proposal of the Congregational Church. The plan is as follows: an annual payment by the minister of one fifth the amount needed to provide an annuity of $500 from the age of sixty-five to death; contributions by churches and individuals sufficient to meet the remaining four fifths of the cost. Three fifths of this annuity passes to the minister's widow, or at her death to minor children; payments proportionate to length of service are to be made in case of disability or death prior to the age of sixty-five; the fund is to be purely mutual — all proceeds will inure to the benefit of members.

Evidently this is a contributory pension in which the beneficiary pays a premium; thus it comes into the insurance class. Out of 5923 Congregational ministers, 275 have thus far become members of the fund. Assets from premium payments and contributions already received amount only to $38,000. The National Council of the Congregational Church, at its recent meeting, passed the following resolution: 'It is the con

viction of this National Council that the supreme duty of the years in which we approach the tercentenary of the landing of the Pilgrims is the securing of a fund of not less than $3,000,000, of which $1,000,000 shall be devoted to Ministerial Relief and $2,000,000 to the Annuity Fund.' The older fund for relief is apparently to remain intact, to be distributed as charity to such as cannot or do not join the Annuity; thus the dole will continue and, as long as it is compelled to operate, justice will remain as a condition only partially realized.

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The Methodist Episcopal Church has 18,881 ministers and has projected a fund of $10,000,000, the interest of which shall be used for pensions. It is hoped that this, with other available income, will give an annuity of one half of a minister's average salary computed on thirty-five years of effective service. In case of earlier disability, the benefit will be prorated; widows and minor children will likewise become beneficiaries. At present there are some other resources available for relief poses (straight charity), such as the interest of a long-established 'Chartered Fund,' the profits of the Methodist Book Concern (amounting in 1913 to $250,000), and an annual collection from all the churches. Whatever is left over from the 'Necessitous Fund' will go into the pension account; and, when the pension scheme is in full working order, practically the entire amount will be available for social justice. Ultimately, therefore, all the resources of the conferences will merge in the central scheme. While no direct and universal levy in the form of a premium has been made upon the ministers, some conferences have voluntarily adopted an assessment on behalf of the $10,000,000 capital. What progress has been made cannot be stated, as the scheme is being worked out through the local

VOL. 117-NO. 4

conferences, and a report will not be available until the General Conference, in May, 1916.

The Presbyterian Church has inaugurated a campaign for raising a capital pension fund of $10,000,000, toward which it has already received and invested $517,445, and it has outstanding and collectable pledges of $352,445 more. The scheme has an insurance aspect, in that only the ministers who join the fund will participate in its benefits. Their premiums will amount to 20 per cent of the total required, the other 80 per cent to be contributed by the church at large, either in gifts to the capital account or by periodic subscriptions. When the fund is complete, a flat annuity of $500 will be paid on retirement at the age of seventy, after thirty years of ministerial service. Provision is made for earlier disability, and likewise for widows and minor children. The plan is already in operation; it has 995 premium-paying members out of the 9685 ministers on the roll of the church; it pays 43 pensions; and even though the $10,000,000 has not been nearly subscribed, the fund feels justified in paying to each beneficiary 70 per cent of the full benefit. Joining the Sustentation Department is not obligatory, but failure to participate will leave the ministers nothing but the charity of the Relief Fund in old age, and to receive that, they must prove actual necessity.

The Relief Department or Board of the Presbyterian Church has a permanent fund of $3,000,000, and received, in 1915, $139,510 by subscription; making altogether, by interest and gifts, $328,694 available for the year's distribution. At present, under the voluntary pension scheme, the work of the Relief Board will have to continue, but if every minister should join the Sustentation or Pension Department, the Board would have no further function,

and, legal difficulties overcome, its invested funds might pass over to the pension capital account.

The Protestant Episcopal Church is appealing for $5,000,000 for the 'Church Pension Fund,' not, however, to be held as capital, but as an initial reserve for accrued liabilities a precaution absolutely necessary under the Episcopal scheme. This proposes a levy on each parish of seven per cent on the annual stipend paid to the incumbent. Such an amount ultimately will pay a deferred salary, or pension, of at least $600 per annum, at the age of sixty-eight, to every clergyman of the church. The very thorough actuarial study upon which this conclusion rests comprehended the age of every clergyman now in orders. But, as those who will participate are of all ages, it is obvious that the seven per cent will not be sufficient at the start- hence the $5,000,000 to meet such accrued liabilities. The Church Pension Fund will also provide for exceptional disablement and for widows and children. In a normal case, the plan will work out as follows: at the age of sixty-eight, on retirement from active work, an annuity is to be provided, which, for technical reasons, is calculated at one and a quarter per cent of the average stipend multiplied by the number of years of the receipt of salary, no annuity to be over fifty per cent of the average salary. When ordination takes place at the average age, twenty-eight, and service in the church has been continuous, the forty years of service multiplied by one and a quarter per cent means fifty per cent, or half-pay. Two things stand out clearly in this scheme: the churches will pay the premiums, and the amount of the pension will vary according to these premiums and therefore according to the salary the beneficiary has received during his active ministry. The premium in the stronger parish, how

ever, is so calculated that it not only pays the pension to its rector, but enables the pension in the weaker parishes to be brought up to a minimum of $600, which is half of the average active salary throughout the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church now has relief funds, retirement funds, or emeritus provisions, amounting to $222,908 per annum, but this amount comes from more than fifty separate sources. When the national plan goes into effect, it will comprehend and supersede the Diocesan, General Clergy Relief, and local retirement funds, and from the Church Pension Fund will meet disability or approaching age as a matter of liability. The Episcopal Church, with its 5700 clergymen, proposes to abandon its haphazard charity and to recognize that its servants have a life-long and indisputable equity in the ecclesiastical corporation. The scheme must go into effect as a whole, and it cannot even be launched until the $5,000,000 for accrued liabilities is in hand.

Other denominations are facing the question, some of them having already launched schemes that promise well. The sample sketches of pension plans given above do not pretend to be an exhaustive account of what the churches have in mind; no judgment should be passed upon any of them from this cursory survey; it has been my purpose simply to show that several ecclesiastical bodies have at least reached the threshold of economic justice — and that it will be an unspeakable disgrace if the forward movement does not reach a consummation. Christian institutions must not allow purely industrial organizations to eclipse them in a matter of applied morals. And, to be severely logical, if the Protestant church cannot reach the level of the industrial ethics of this age and land with its present conception of the ministry, then it

should, in common honesty, revise its definition of the clerical office and function. It is quite conceivable that Protestantism could continue with a celibate clergy; it is conceivable that Protestantism could continue without a paid ministry at all; but it is inconceivable that Protestantism shall continue in honor and in power if its treatment of the ministry, based on the family unit, shall fall below the current moral standard of the industrial world.

As sure as there is a conscience in the race there will be a frightful Nemesis if the alternative is not faced. Already there is difficulty in getting a supply of high-calibre candidates for the ministry; the men of broadest mind and most sensitive soul are not willing to pay the toll. And there are many ministers, too old to serve the church but not too old to suffer, who secretly envy the Jesus of Nazareth who died at thirtythree with his work done.

THE CRUX OF THE PEACE PROBLEM

BY WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER

I

THE revulsion of feeling against war itself, engendered by the present war, is beyond question the most powerful stimulus to the cause of universal peace the world has yet known. It has created in many minds the conviction that war must end, and it has stirred in some minds the determination to strive without ceasing to bring about this result. The feeling is manifestly acquiring a strength and consistency of purpose sufficient to carry it beyond the generation in which it has been developed, and to give it the cumulative power of time.

And yet it cannot be claimed that the progress of the peace movement is proportionate to the stimulus which is constantly acting upon it. The current of feeling which sets so strongly away from war does not run with equal force toward peace. It seems to be increasingly difficult to organize the anti-war

sentiment into the peace movement. The reason commonly given is the confirmed unbelief of men in the practicability of universal peace. I question the sufficiency of the explanation. When men are stirred by tremendous convictions they are not daunted by the fear of impracticability. I believe that we are as clearly justified in committing the cause of universal peace to 'the opinion of mankind' as were our forefathers in committing their new doctrine of universal liberty and equality to the same accessible and sufficient authority. True, we thereby ask for nothing less than a reversal of the habit of thought of the world. They in their time asked for nothing less. The great generations have always asked in one way or another for the same thing. Though in itself something new and strange, it is not without historic warrant, that men who have inherited the habit of thinking in terms of war should be expected to acquire

the habit of thinking in terms of peace.

We must go much deeper for the explanation of the increasing hesitancy in the acceptance of the doctrine of universal peace. The problem of peace, for such the peace movement has now become, does not lie in the conviction of its impracticability, unless it be deemed morally impracticable. The suggestion of the moral impracticability of peace seems like a contradiction of terms. Nevertheless, if we follow it but a little way, it will lead to the disquieting discovery of a very strong suspicion in the popular mind of a latent selfishness in peace; and further, after due observation and reflection, we shall be brought, I think, to see that the very crux of the problem of peace lies in the difficulty of eradicating this suspicion. The awful immoralities of war, so terribly obvious, are offset in part by the counteracting effect of the impressive displays of unselfishness.

We are all conscious of a grievous grievous inconsistency in our feelings about war. As the horrors of the present war press steadily upon us, and the menace of militarism becomes more threatening, there are times when the argument against war seems to be complete and final. But when the moral aspects of our own Civil War are brought before us in vivid retrospect, as in the recent gathering of so many survivors of the conflict in their enfeebled but exultant comradeship; and when the moral result of that war is set forth in the words of a peace-loving President as 'a miracle of the spirit, in that, instead of destroying, it has healed'; and when, after the lapse of the half-century, we can see no other way than that then taken through which we could have reached our present state of unity and peace, we are not so sure that the present war has closed the case against war.

War, in itself essentially evil, may acquire moral character as the instru

mentality for serving a righteous cause. Peace, in itself essentially good, may lose moral character from the failure to identify itself with a righteous cause in the time of its extremity. I trace the popular suspicion of a latent selfishness in peace to its undefined and indeterminate attitude in so many cases toward ends outside and beyond itself. The constant insistence upon peace as an end in itself is to be deprecated. If we are to create confidence in the trustworthiness of peace to render that sacrificial service which is at times rendered so effectively through war, it must be made to wear a different aspect from that which it now presents to the world. We cannot afford to overlook the very marked distrust of its moral reliability for the more serious business of the nations. We cannot afford to ignore the hesitancy of men in the lower ranks of rights and privileges, powerless except for numbers, to employ a new and uncertain agency to secure broader rights and higher privileges. Neither can we afford to make light of the questionings in our own hearts as to our ability, under such conditions of peace as we have known, to awaken and satisfy those nobler instincts of human nature which have at times found stimulating if not satisfying employment in war. Certainly the ordinary routine of peace would not be satisfying. Its luxuries would be debasing. Human nature would send up its continual challenge for some moral equivalent of war. I note with careful attention this sentence, quoted by the reviewer of a recent book, The Unmaking of Europe: 'Europe will never cease from war till she finds some better thing to do; that better business is neither trade nor philosophy, nor even art: it is—in one word sacrifice.'

I am convinced that it will be to the ultimate advancement of the cause of universal peace if we inquire with suffi

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