The Benevolent Work of the Church, and the Report of the Committee of Twenty-One [pp. 246-272]

1872.1 THE BENEVOLENT WORK OF THE CHURCH. 251
deavor to meet this felt necessity with something which
should, on the one hand, tend "to enlist all" our Presbyteries and congregations in cooperation with the Boards
<)f the Church; and (with a view to the uniform arrangement and administration of our entire benevolent work)
should, on the other hand, simplify, if possible, and consolidate the various operations.
ALL 0un MEMBERS TO BE ENLISTED IN CHURCH W~~~: ALL
METHODS TO BE SIMPLIFIED AND ECONOMIZED.
1.~0) c~~U~[inj~ oil i~~ ti-c`~t~rk, a Board (Committee) of
Benevolence and Finance" was proposed, with co6perahng
committees of Presbyteries and Synods, which were to be
connected together, and wiili~il~e several Boards, by a
V~8I9)U GENERAL COMMISSION.
Two of the three elements of this plan were, in all essential
respects, adopted by the Assembly. A Committee of Benev~lence and Finance was appointed, and the Presbyteries
~were enjoined to have codperating committees.
It is not an insignificant circumstance, that the only one
of the propositions at all ventilated,-the only one which its
friends could fully explain, was finally adopted by the Assembly. Yet, singularly enough, this proposal to have a
Committee of Benevolence and Finance was at first opposed
more than all else of H~e Report. The arguments of its chief
opponents were ahuost entirely against this very element of
the plan. It was urged:
"That such a commfttee, iliough unobjechonable, had been long tried
by the 0. S. branch of the Church to very little advantage that not much
is t() be anticipated from it; that it will not have any infinence coinpai-ed wiili flie Boards that the Church learns to sympailiize with the
secretaries and Boards when they arc embarrassed; and that the seeretaries and Boards plead with a pathos and urgency that cannot be resisted: tkQq tell the wants of their own department with a precision and
distinctness which no general Commiftee of Benevolence and Finance
could do."
The Pr i)~Cet&)~ 11ev jew, however, took the ground, that
"The General Assembly did wisely in going so far ~vith the Committee
of 21;" "and the one great ti~th signalized in the Report was, flie necessity of ~kve1oping u)~d orga'iii~ing the benevotence and tibe~~atity of the