t^rvl Virainia.Ua*/c&TcrKi 
 
 Should Protestant 
 Ministers Marry? 
 
 By Marion Harland 
 
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 ur 
 
 Should Protestant 
 Ministers Marry? 
 
 By Marion Harland 
 
 ^^^JAN16 191 
 
 Witherspoon Building 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 1913 
 
 y 
 
.T3I 
 
 Reprinted by the Courtesy of 
 "The Continent" 
 
 for 
 Ministerial Relief and Sustentation 
 
 of the 
 
 Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 
 
 Witherspoon Building 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 ■WILLIAM HIRAM FOULKES, General Secretary 
 
 JNO. R. SUTHERLAND W. S. HOLT 
 
 Associate Secretaries 
 
 W. W. HEBERTON, Treasurer 
 
 Copyright 1913 
 By The Continent 
 
 Printed by 
 The Holmes Press, Philadelphia 
 
Should Protestant Ministers Marry? 
 
 By Marion Harland 
 
 PAUL, the itinerant missionary, contends 
 stoutly for his right to lead about a wife 
 (inferentially, if it should please him so 
 to do), quoting in his support of the claim the 
 example of Cephas, etc. That the right was 
 admitted without cavil in the early church we 
 gather from further remarks relative to the 
 wives of bishops and deacons. 
 
 Martin Luther gave unequivocal testimony 
 to his views upon the subject of a married 
 clergy by wedding a nun who had, like him- 
 self, abjured the conventual life. From that 
 day onward . the theory of the protesting 
 church has not wavered with respect to the 
 right and practice. Suggestions from irre- 
 sponsible sources to the effect that he wars 
 most effectively who carries light impedimenta 
 are frowned down when directed churchward. 
 An unwritten law encourages, if it does not 
 enjoin upon, the young minister to take unto 
 himself a wife betimes as part of his equip- 
 ment for the home or foreign field. 
 
 The consensus of parish or community is 
 that the ministry of reconciliation — the noblest 
 of what are classed as the "learned profes- 
 sions" — is involved with social and domestic 
 obligations that pertain to no other calling. For 
 the right discharge of these, we are informed 
 3 
 
by the church at large and by individual mem- 
 bers, a married man is better fitted than a 
 bachelor. The minister's wife is his helpmeet 
 in an especially sacred sense. The Christian 
 home ruled by the united twain is an object 
 lesson no congregation should lack. 
 
 A Fine Theory 
 So far, so fair ! From the Protestant view- 
 point the theory is flawless, the world and 
 human nature being not many degrees from 
 the status of Paul's times. Will the reader who 
 is supposed to be versed in the Scriptures bear 
 with me when I ask him to read as for the 
 first time the advice in detail given by the 
 chiefest of apostles to his *'own son in the 
 faith" called through his instrumentality to the 
 bishopric of Ephesus? 
 
 A Perfect Parson 
 
 *'A bishop, then, must be blameless, the hus- 
 band of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good be- 
 havior, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not 
 given to wine ; no striker ; not greedy of filthy 
 lucre, but patient ; not a brawler ; not covetous ; 
 one that ruleth well his own house, having his 
 children in subjection with all gravity (for if 
 a man know not how to rule his own house, 
 how shall he take care of the house of God?). 
 Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride 
 he fall into condemnation of the devil. More- 
 over, he must have a good report of them 
 which are without, lest he fall into reproach 
 and the snare of the devil." 
 
The whole epistle is a masterpiece of sound 
 common-sensible counsel, informed with pater- 
 nal tenderness. Student and licentiate of the 
 twentieth century can find nowhere a better 
 manual of faith and practice. Yet we catch 
 ourselves speculating as to the probabilities of 
 Timothy's marriage. There is no fatherly 
 word for the bride among the greetings to 
 Aquila and Priscilla and other friends in the 
 second letter. 
 
 However this may have been, the picture of 
 the well ordered parsonage and the portrait of 
 the master thereof have not been improved 
 upon by modern writers upon clerical life and 
 clerical manners. Happy is that parish that 
 hath such! 
 
 We have no allusion to the high price of 
 foodstuffs in Ephesus, yet practical Paul does 
 not omit the truth that human life requires 
 material sustenance. 
 
 Muzzling The Ox 
 
 Harking back, once and again, to the Mosaic 
 injunction, 'Thou shalt not muzzle the ox 
 when he treadeth out the corn," he declares 
 plainly : "The laborer is worthy of his hire," 
 and 'They which preach the gospel shall live 
 by the gospel." Lest there may be some mis- 
 apprehension as to the source from whence 
 this same "living" is to come, w^e are admon- 
 ished in another epistle: 
 
 "Let him that is taught in the word com- 
 municate to him that teacheth in all good 
 things." 
 
Why multiply texts to prove what is theo- 
 retically a foregone conclusion? The obliga- 
 tion of the church to provide for those who 
 minister unto them in holy things has been 
 recognized in all ages. The right of the min- 
 ister to marry is as frankly acknowledged. In 
 a majority of churches the expediency of his 
 marriage is openly urged. Almost as binding 
 in civilized communities is the demand that 
 the pastor shall be an educated gentleman, and 
 his wife a woman of culture and refinement. 
 Paul sets the pace here, too. "He must have 
 a good report of them which are without." 
 The parish must never be ashamed of him or 
 his family. Have you ever thought of the 
 deep meaning wrapped up in the phrase "given 
 to hospitality"? We express it in part when 
 we say that "the minister keeps an open 
 house." 
 
 A Miracle Of Grace 
 
 To condense the requisitions : He must live 
 in a house large enough to accommodate way- 
 faring brethren and their families ; to entertain 
 church societies and "delegates." He must set 
 a decent table; his children must be as well 
 clad as their playfellows and attend good 
 schools. The parsonage is a city set on a hill, 
 and the walls might be of glass, so open to the 
 eye of all men and women are the movements 
 and manners of the inmates. 
 
 Yet let me quote from a paper issued by 
 the church sustentation society of a leading 
 denomination in America and abroad: 
 
"Every minister who is duly installed over 
 a church and congregation of our communion 
 is promised a 'competent worldly maintenance 
 that he may be free from worldly cares and 
 avocations/ " It is significant, I interject 
 here, that the word "avocations" is used in its 
 legitimate meaning : "The act of calling aside, 
 or diverting from one's proper calling or busi- 
 ness." 
 
 Eight Hours And Overtime 
 
 "The competent worldly maintenance" is to 
 secure all the energies and time of the laborer 
 for the vineyard he is hired to tend. Your mill 
 hand "knocks off" your work at 5 or 6 o'clock, 
 and if he be a wide-awake fellow, he turns 
 many an honest penny during the evenings and 
 half holidays. The bookkeeper may, without 
 let or hindrance, write up other ledgers than 
 your own at home. There are scores of ways 
 by which the professed hireling may eke out 
 his wages. Physicians, lawyers and merchants 
 ask nobody's permission as to the employment 
 of their spare hours. 
 
 "One man, in his time, plays many parts" 
 — and perchance quadruples his income. Our 
 ordained and installed Ixion is bound to the 
 wheel of his "sacred office" until his "period 
 of usefulness is at an end." (O, familiar and 
 fateful phrase!) 
 
 We have, then, a finely tempered instrument 
 of the most approved pattern, which is not to 
 be diverted to any use other than that desig- 
 
nated in the contract. The natural sequence 
 would seem to be that a fair and equitable 
 price should be paid for it. 
 
 In reply, I append the comment of another 
 writer upon this topic : 
 
 'There is bitter humor in the Form of Gov- 
 ernment just quoted when the 'competent 
 worldly maintenance' is a third less than a 
 mechanic's w^age." 
 
 Nearing The Bread Line 
 
 The bitterness is made pungent and the 
 humor of the situation lessened by the state- 
 ment drawn from the circular letter put forth 
 by the secretary of a ministerial relief associa- 
 tion connected with an influential and, in the 
 main, wealthy communion: 
 
 "The average salary paid to our ministers 
 in the active pastorate is $600 per annum." 
 
 Of course he cannot support life upon that 
 unless he be a bachelor and his residence be 
 in a mining camp or mountain region where 
 the barest necessaries of life must suffice to 
 supply his wants. If a family man must get 
 along upon less than a mechanic's wage, he is 
 helped out by donation parties and occasional 
 boxes of cast-off clothing from richer churches. 
 In plain English, he and his are paupers as 
 essentially as if they were lodged in the alms- 
 house. 
 
 Said a rich woman to me with the air of one 
 who, by her deeds of mercy, makes her calling 
 and election sure: *T always give liberally to 
 
the church and other worthy charities. You 
 know, 'Whoso giveth to the poor lendeth to 
 the Lord.' As I often say to my husband, 'We 
 cannot ask better security.' " 
 
 "Church and other charities!" That is oft- 
 ener the tone of the rank and file of Protes- 
 tant church members than we are wilHng to 
 admit. All that they contribute to the pastor's 
 support over and above the meager stipend we 
 have indicated is set down to the Lord's ac- 
 count — and on the debit side of the sheet. 
 Interest is compounded according to a system 
 patented by themselves. 
 
 Lagging Behind The World 
 Philanthropists write and declaim from the 
 rostrum against the penuriousness of a govern- 
 ment that pays its armed defenders a "beggarly 
 pittance." The soldier grumbles less loudly 
 in the knowledge that half pay awaits him at 
 the close of his term of service and a pension 
 for his family at his death. Our minister may 
 be turned out of office many years earlier than 
 his blue-coated brother, and absolutely penni- 
 less so far as any provision made by the church 
 goes. 
 
 By sailing closely to the wind he may have 
 kept his family in food and clothes. He has 
 not been able to save a dollar even from the 
 stray checks and greenbacks doled out to him 
 patronizingly by friend and parishioner. In 
 his most prosperous estate, he and his thrifty 
 helpmeet have achieved only shabby gentility. 
 
For the remainder of their days they drop the 
 tattered cloak of gentiHty and settle down to 
 the unequivocal squalor of confessed poverty. 
 
 And this at an age when his college mates 
 are touring the continent in their motor cars 
 and eating the plum cake of carelessness! 
 
 Do not plead that the church, as a whole, is 
 ignorant of the enormity of this injustice. The 
 church does not concern itself with improvi- 
 dent families unless they belong to the "inter- 
 esting poor" — the class for which we build 
 settlement houses and association halls and 
 welfare work homes. 
 
 For Love Or Money 
 
 If poor young ministers will marry poor 
 girls they must take what is coming to the 
 educated improvident. After all, the out- 
 spoken old minister was not so far wrong as 
 we are inclined to think — or say — who advised 
 the graduating class of theologues to pick out 
 wives who are ''pious and have a little prop- 
 erty." It is fast becoming fashionable to dep- 
 recate the marriage of ministers who have 
 nothing but their salaries to depend upon. 
 Careful students of varied economies do not 
 hesitate to point out the superior efficiency of 
 Roman Catholic missionaries, and to attribute 
 their success to their celibacy. There is no 
 disguising the fact that wives and children are 
 impedimenta that cannot be cast aside when 
 duty calls to another field. These are spokes- 
 men whose deliverances are not indorsed by 
 
 10 
 
the church. On the contrary, we still swear 
 audibly by Paul and content our consciences 
 with spasmodic relief of suffering consequent 
 upon ill-advised wedlock. 
 
 Is it possible that underlying the apparent 
 apathy lurks the belief that more and better 
 work is accomplished by the celibate than by 
 the married minister? That, instead of overt 
 advocacy of a tenet that might scandalize old- 
 time Christians and cause the enemy to blas- 
 pheme, we foresee that the end will be as 
 surely gained by slow starvation? 
 
 Music And Ministry 
 Before I, who write thus, am accused of 
 treason to my faith and church, look the ugly 
 facts square in the face and say upon what 
 other hypothesis they may be explained away. 
 Protestants are not niggardly in other direc- 
 tions. There is hardly a church in any city 
 that does not expend more upon music in one 
 year than it subscribes in three years for "min- 
 isterial relief and the ministers' widows' fund." 
 A single memorial window that is criticised 
 as a blotch upon the wall of the sanctuary 
 costs treble the sum asked for by the incum- 
 bent who demurs in spirit at the task of solicit- 
 ing funds for the "sustentation" of his needy 
 brethren. Maybe because an echo of the old 
 epitaph sounds through the chambers of his 
 soul : 
 
 "As we are now, so must you be!" 
 
 Denis Wortman, D.D., the able secretary 
 
 11 
 
of the Society for Ministerial Relief of the 
 Reformed (Dutch) Church in America, has 
 a pertinent and feeling word upon the unwill- 
 ingness of the clergyman to press home upon 
 the hearts of his hearers the plain truth of the 
 attitude of the church upon this subject: 
 
 **Do you know that it does grind upon us 
 to be asking help for men in our own profes- 
 sion ? It seems to humiliate ! It seems to lower 
 the dignity of the ministry! Possibly with 
 some it seems to bring our sacred calling into 
 contempt. We are exposing poverties many 
 of our clergy are painfully endeavoring to 
 conceal for the Master's sake." 
 
 A Sister Church 
 
 From a report compiled by the same writer 
 I extract statistics that should open the eyes 
 of all but the willfully blind: 
 
 'The disabled ministers' fund, started in 
 1854, is for rehef of disabled ministers and 
 their widows and orphans in honorable need. 
 Assistance is unfortunately limited, by want 
 of funds, to $200 a year; and may be given 
 only as recommended by classis, and year by 
 year. We seek larger annual offerings and 
 worthier endowment, so we be not limited to 
 such miserly amounts. The annual offering 
 has now increased from $3,900 to $8,535 ; 
 which we are bound to raise to $10,000, and 
 keep it there, at the least. It has an endow- 
 ment of $114,000, which we must raise to 
 $250,000 at least, for which we ask and entreat 
 
 12 
 
large gifts and legacies from the rich. Twenty- 
 nine ministers and thirty-six widows are now 
 enjoying this relief. Meanwhile the number 
 of annuitants increases from year to year, and 
 will continue to do so with increase of prices 
 of living and the earlier retirement of minis- 
 ters from active service." 
 
 The Dew Of Our Youth 
 
 There is pregnant meaning in that last 
 clause. It is set forth, without apology for 
 the bald statement, in a government report 
 issued by the Board of Education. It is 
 headed boldly by the journal copying the re- 
 port: "NUMBER WHO SEEK PROTES- 
 TANT PULPITS CONSTANTLY DE- 
 CREASING. A remarkable decrease in the 
 number of Protestant ministers graduated 
 from the universities of the country is shown 
 in a current report of the United States bureau 
 of education. 
 
 " Tt is plain,' says the report, 'that educated 
 men no longer seek the cloth as they did when 
 the nation was younger. It may mean much or 
 little that the percentage of ministers among 
 the graduates of typical colleges has declined 
 from a proportion of 60 or 70 per cent, to less 
 than 10 per cent.' 
 
 '*An examination of the figures collected 
 at the close of the nineteenth century from 
 thirty-seven representative colleges discloses 
 the fact that the ministry takes between 5 and 
 6 per cent, of the university graduates, which 
 
 13 
 
marks the lowest point for that profession 
 during the two and one-half centuries of 
 American college history." 
 
 Put side by side with the humiliating figures 
 herein tabulated, the certainty that the de- 
 crease in the number of candidates for work 
 in a fast widening field, white for the harvest, 
 is as well known to the aforesaid Protestant 
 church as the simplest fact in natural history, 
 and that it does not incite it to amendment of 
 the wrong which has brought it about — and 
 what deduction can be drawn from knowledge 
 and apathy? As a body, the church is deter- 
 mined not to maintain married men in the 
 ministry? Actions, more eloquent than pro- 
 testations, give the lie to the professed ap- 
 proval of home sketched by Paul and nomi- 
 nally indorsed by professors of the Protestant 
 faith. 
 
 Crowned With Care 
 It is a favorite trick of business and political 
 organizations to "freeze out" unpopular mem- 
 bers rather than eject them openly. A church 
 that afifects to condemn papal principles and 
 usages is quietly freezing out the married 
 clergy in its own faith. Without abating one 
 jot or one tittle of belief in the obligation to 
 spread the gospel of salvation to earth's re- 
 motest bounds, we insist, practically, that such 
 work must be done by a man who is willing to 
 resign the joys of home, the companionship 
 of wife and child, and to bring personal re- 
 
 14 
 
quirements down to hermit fare and squatter's 
 hut, while he is adjudged capable of discharg- 
 ing "acceptably" the duties of the sacred office. 
 It has passed into a proverb that the pastor 
 crosses the dead line at 50. His hoary head is 
 disgrace and displacement instead of glory. 
 
 Resignation Or What 
 
 "We kinder lost our relish for our preach- 
 er," said the deacon of a colored church, "so 
 we done sent in his resignation." 
 
 The same is done in effect yearly in hun- 
 dreds of Protestant churches made up of 
 his superiors in race and education. Freezing 
 him out is equivalent to sending in his resigna- 
 tion. If he be celibate, he may have taken out 
 a "limited insurance policy" upon his life and 
 scraped together the premium year by year. 
 He has timed it to fall due at 50, or there- 
 abouts, and (if he be single) he may have 
 enough to keep the life in him for the rest of 
 his weary, because idle, days. 
 
 The tale is trite, but none the less pitiful 
 because it is so often told. 
 
 Sensational newspapers set "scareheads" 
 above announcements of the rapidly thinning 
 ranks of the church militant. The church is 
 itself apparently content to let the logic of 
 events demonstrate the necessity of a celibate 
 clergy if the evangelization of the world is to 
 go on. 
 
 15