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Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish, a fiction by Lyman Abbott |
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Chapter 21. Ministerial Salaries |
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_ CHAPTER XXI. Ministerial Salaries "MR. Wheaton," said I, "we made a queer blunder the other night; we did not settle on any salary when we made out our call to Mr. Mapleson." "No blunder," said Mr. Wheaton, "I left it out on purpose. I thought may be we could get him for less than fifteen hundred dollars. What do you think? Wouldn't he come on twelve hundred, and the parsonage?" And Mr. Wheaton smiled on me with an air of self-satisfaction which seemed to say, 'Jim Wheaton is the man to manage church business.' I confess I was indignant at the idea of driving a sharp bargain with a minister, but I rather suspect Jim Wheaton never makes any other than a sharp bargain. "Not with my advice," said I. "I told him the church ought to pay fifteen hundred a year and a parsonage, and I presumed it would. But I recommend him not to come till he knows." We were in the Post Office, waiting for the distribution of the evening mail. Mr. Hardcap was one of our group. So was Deacon Goodsole. It was indeed a sort of extemporized and unintentional meeting of our supply committee, only Mr. Gear being absent. "The church won't give mor'n 1,200 with my advice," said Mr. Hardcap decidedly. "And that's mor'n I make. I would just like to contract my time for the year at four dollars a day. And I have to get up at six and work till sunset, ten hours, hard work. I don't see why the parson should have half as much again for five or six hours' work. I have heard our old pastor say myself that he never allowed himself to study mor'n six hours a day." "But the pastoral work, Mr. Hardcap?" said I. "You make no account of that." "The calls, do you mean?" said he. "Well, I should like to be paid four dollars a day for just dressin' up in my best and visitin', that's all." "Not only the calls," said I, "though you would find calling anything but recreation, if it was your business. But there are the prayer-meetings, and the Sabbath-school, and the whole management and direction of the church." "Prayer-meetin' and Sabbath-school!" replied Mr. Hardcap; "don't we all work in them? And we don't ask any salary for it. I guess it ain't no harder for the parson to go to prayer-meetin' than for me." I shrugged my shoulders. The deacon interposed. "I agree with you, Mr. Laicus," said he. "We have got to pay a good salary. I wish we could make it two thousand a year instead of fifteen hundred." Mr. Hardcap opened his eyes and pursed his mouth firmly together, as though he would say 'Do my ears deceive me?' "But," continued the deacon, "there is something in what Mr. Hardcap says. There are half-a-dozen farmers in our Wheathedge congregation who don't handle fifteen hundred dollars in money from one year's end to the other. Mr. Hardcap isn't the only man to whom it seems a big sum to pay. Mr. Lapstone the shoemaker, Mrs. Croily the seamstress, Joe Hodgkins the blacksmith, and half-a-dozen others I could name, have to live on less. And you must remember their incomes, Mr. Laicus, as well as yours, and mine, and Mr. Wheaton's here." "Well, gentlemen," said Mr. Wheaton, "we've got to pay a good salary, but I think we ought to keep expenses down all we can." "I don't believe in makin' preachin' a money makin' business no-how," said Mr. Hardcap. "Parsons hain't got no business to be a layin' up of earthly riches, and fifteen hundred dollars is a good deal of money to spend on bread and butter, now I tell you." "Mr. Hardcap," said I, "what do your tools cost you?" "My tools?" said he. "Yes," said I, "your tools. What do they cost you?" "Well," said he, "they range all the way from ten cents up to five dollars, accordin' to the article and its quality." "Did you ever consider," said I, "what a minister's tools cost?" "Minister's tools!" said he, "I didn't know he had any, except his pen." "My dear sir," said I, "his tools alone cost him between one and two hundred dollars a year." Mr. Hardcap expressed his incredulity by a long whistle; and even Deacon Goodsole expressed a quiet doubt. But my father was a minister and I know something about it. "Look here," said I. "He must have at least two religious weeklies, one of his own denomination, and one of a more general character," and I took out a pencil and paper and noted down my list as I made it, "that's six dollars. He ought to have at least two of the popular magazines, that's eight dollars. He ought to have a good scientific magazine of some kind, four dollars more; and his theological quarterly is indispensable, four dollars more; and at least one of the daily newspapers, he ought really to read on both sides, but we will allow only one, that's ten dollars, and here is the footing of his periodical literature: Two religious weeklies $6 Popular Magazines 8 Scientific Magazine 4 Theological Quarterly 4 Daily Paper 10 $32" "That's what it will cost him," said I, "simply to keep up with the times." The other gentlemen looked at my figures a moment in silence. Deacon Goodsole was the first to speak. "That is a pretty liberal estimate," said he. "A great many ministers get along on less than that." "Oh yes," said I, "and grow dry and dull in consequence. Little food makes lean men." Mr. Hardcap shook his head resolutely, "I don't believe in preachin' to the times," said he. "It's scripter interpretation and the doctrines we want." "Very well," said I, "the tools for that work cost more yet. Yours cost you from ten cents to five dollars, his from five dollars to a hundred. A single volume of Lange, or Alford, or the Speaker's Commentary cost five dollars; a good Bible Dictionary, from twenty to thirty; a good Encyclopedia, from fifty to a hundred. And theological treaties have a small market and therefore a high price-very high for their value. And his tools grow old too, and have to be replaced oftener than yours do, Mr. Hardcap." "I don't see that, Mr. Laicus," said he. "A book, if you keep it careful, will last a great many years. I am reading out of a Bible that belonged to my grandfather. And I expect 'll belong to my grandson yet." "My dear Mr. Hardcap," said I, "the leaves and covers and printed works do not make the book. Ideas make the book. You can use your tools over and over again. If your plane gets dull out comes the hones and the dulled edge is quickly sharpened again. But ideas are gone when they are used." "I don't see it," said Mr. Hardcap. And I do not suppose he does. I wonder if he knows what an idea is. "It is so," continued I, "with all student-tools. There are a few which the minister uses over and over again; his dictionaries, commentaries, and cyclopedia, if he has one. There are a few treaties that are worth reading and re-reading; but they are exceptional. Generally the student gets the gist of a book in one reading, as a squirrel the kernel of a nut at one crack. What remains on his shelves thereafter is only a shell. A book that has been dulled can rarely be sharpened and put to use again. There is no ministerial hone. The parson must replenish his bench every year. At least he ought to." "I haven't no great opinion of larned ministers no-how," said Mr. Hardcap. "It isn't larnin' we want, Mr. Laicus. It is the Gospel, the pure, unadulterated Gospel." Mr. Hardcap was incorrigible. I might as well try to explain to a North American Indian the cost and the value of a modern cotton mill as the cost and the value of student tools to Mr. Hardcap. But I believe I produced some impression on the others. Deacon Goodsole still pondered my figures. "I never thought of the cost of minister's tool before," said he. "It's quite an item." "Well," said Mr. Hardcap, "for my part I don't see why the parson can't live on a thousand dollars a year as well as I can." I had failed to produce conviction on the subject of tools. I resolved to try another tack. "What do you pay for help?" said I. "Help?" said he interrogatively. "Yes," said I. "What do you pay your cook and chambermaid?" "Hoh!" said he contemptuously. "I don't keep no help. My Bible tells me that God made the wife to be a help-meet for man, and my wife is all the help I want. I wouldn't have a servant round my house at no price." "Do you suppose our pastor and his wife can get along the same way?" I asked. "Don't see why not," said he sententiously. "What!" said Mr. Wheaton. "Would you have your pastor's wife do her own work, Mr. Hardcap? I hope we haven't got so poor as that. She must be a lady, Mr. Hardcap; a lady, sir." "Well," said Mr. Hardcap, "and can't a lady do her own work? High and mighty notions these that a woman must eat the bread of idleness to be a lady." "Oh! it's all very well, Mr. Hardcap," said Mr. Wheaton; "but our pastor's wife has a position to maintain. She owes a duty to the parish, sir. She can't be maid of all work at home. I should be ashamed of the church to suffer it." "There certainly is a difference, Mr. Hardcap," said the Deacon. "Mrs. Hardcap may do her own washing. And if anybody finds her over the washtub Monday morning no one thinks the worse of her for it. But it really wouldn't do for our pastor's wife." Mr. Hardcap shook his head resolutely. "I don't see it," said he. "I don't believe a minister's wife is too good to work." "She isn't," said the Deacon. "But if she washes Monday, and irons Tuesday, and sweeps Wednesday, and bakes Thursday, and sews Friday and Saturday, what time has she left to make calls or receive them?" Mr. Hardcap only shrugged his shoulders. "How many calls does your wife make in a year?" I asked. "Oh! we don't make no calls," said Mr. Hardcap. "We've got other work to do." "And yet you expect your minister and his wife to call on you?" said I interrogatively. "I s'pose so," said he. "I remember hearing you say that you thought it rather hard of Mrs. Work, just before they left, that she hadn't been inside of your house for six months. How many calls do you suppose Mrs. Mapleson would have to make in a year in order to call on every family once in six months?" "Don't know," said Mr. Hardcap, shortly. "Well," said the Deacon, "we've got over a hundred families in our parish. It would take nearly one call every day." "Beside extra calls on the sick," I continued. "You will either have to give Mrs. Mapleson a servant or relinquish your expectation of receiving any calls from her; that is very evident." Mr. Hardcap made no reply. "There are one or two other items that ought to be considered in deciding what the pastor's salary should be," said a gentle but tremulous voice at my side. I turned about to see the speaker. It was old Father Hyatt, who had joined our group, unperceived. "I suppose Mr. Hardcap's best broadcloth coat and Mrs. Hardcap's black silk gown last them a good many years. Isn't it so, Mr. Hardcap?" Mr. Hardcap confessed that it was. "The minister has to wear broadcloth, Mr. Hardcap, all the week. He must be always in society dress. So must his wife. With the utmost economy their bill for clothes mounts up to a frightful sum. I know, for I have tried it." "There is something in that," said Mr. Hardcap. Old Father Hyatt is a great favorite with Mr. Hardcap, as indeed he is with all of us. And no one ever accused Father Hyatt of extravagance. "I know a city clergyman," continued the old man, "who always preaches in a silk gown, though he is a Congregationalist. 'It saves my coat', said he to me once in explanation. 'I can wear a seedy coat in the pulpit and no one is the wiser.' 'But,' said I, 'how about the silk gown?' 'Oh!' said he, 'the ladies furnish the gown.'" We laughed at the parson's shrewdness. Even Mr. Hardcap smiled. "And there are some other items, too, gentlemen," added Father Hyatt, "which I hope you will consider. The churches don't ordinarily know about them. At least they do not consider them. The company item alone is an enormous one. Not once in six months now do I have a friend to pass the night with me. But when I was settled here my spare room always had a guest, and half the time my stable an extra horse. Every benevolent agent, every traveling minister, every canvasser makes straight for the minister's house. He has to keep an inn for the benefit of the parish, and gets no pay for it." "Cut them off," said Mr. Hardcap. But he said it good naturedly. "'Given to hospitality,' says the Apostle," replied Father Hyatt. "Well," said Deacon Goodsole, with a sigh, "we ought to pay the fifteen hundred a year. It's none too much. But I don't see where it's coming from." "Oh! never you fear," said Mr. Wheaton. "Mr. Mapleson is worth fifteen hundred, and we'll have to pay it. We'll get it somehow. Write him it's fifteen hundred, Mr. Laicus. You'll be safe enough." With which our informal conference came to an end. But I have not written. I wonder if Jim Wheaton runs the Koniwasset Coal Company, and the Newtown railroad, and the Wheathedge bank on the "somehow" principle. I wish had asked him. I am glad I have no stock in them. _ |
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