The General Assembly [pp. 529-543]

1875.] THE GENERAL ASSEMBLV. 537
Missions and Sustentation on the same general field, under the different and
conflicting rules hitherto applied to them respectively.
Your Committee therefore respectfully recommend the adoption of the
following resolutions, viz.
I. That a committee of four Ministers and three Ruling Elders be appointed by this Assembly, whose duty it shall be to meet in New York, and
after a thorough examination of the whole subject, with full access to the
records pertaining to Home Missions and Sustentation, and availing themselves of the information to be derived from all other sources, especially the
actual working of the two schemes, report to the next Assembly, if possible
a plan by which they can be brought to unity and efficiency of operation.
* * * * * * *
III. That the same management shall continue for the next year which has
operated during the year that is past, and that the churches be urged to contribute as heretofore to the cause of Sustentation."
The Assembly adopted these resolutions, and the Moderator appointed the following committee thereupon, viz.:
Rev. Dr. James I. Brownson, Rev. H. A Nelson, Rev. J. Addison Henry,
and Rev. H. C. Haydn, and Elders W. W. Spence of Baltimore, W. R.
Vermilye of New York, and Louis Chapin of Rochester.
We hope so able and judicious a committee can find some
way to a solution of the alleged conflict, or as some say, incompatibility between Home Missions and Sustentation without
sacrificing or jeoparding either. Of course some friction or
temporary collision is always likely to attend the early experimental workings of new and untried schemes, from causes unforeseen, and therefore incapable of being guarded against till
they are revealed by experience. The Sustentation scheme
encounters difficulties here in our immense and ever expanding
missionary field, not experienced in the compact communities
and settled social and ecclesiastical conditions of the old world.
But none the less do we think it would prove an irreparable
loss, if we should suffer the principle of sustentation to perish
out of our church schemes. Its aim in brief is this: I. The
lifting up of the minimum salary of our pastors to $i,ooo. 2.
To do this in a way which stimulates and constrains the members of their churches to the utmost increase of their own contributions for the purpose. 3. To bring them up to a state of
self-support, and independence of church boards at the
earliest possible moment. 4. To promote the establishment
of the pastoral relation and the allied permanency of Christian
institutions and ordinances it implies. 5. To lift the mission