The annual conference of the Board of Indian Commissioners was held in this city to-day, Dr. M. E. Streiby, of New York, presiding, General E. Whittlesey, of this city, secretary. Reports of the work of the missionary societies during the last year were read, and addresses were made by General Armstrong, Capt. Pratt, Mrs. Quinton, of Philadelphia, Miss Robertson, of the Indian Territory, and Miss Fletcher, the last named presenting a series of photographs exhibiting the progress of Indians in civilization. Resolutions were adopted indorsing the bill pending before Congress to give lands to Indians in severalty, known as the Coke bill;" recommending that the Indian Bureau be made an independent bureau with a responsible head, the same as the Department of Agriculture, and deprecating the consolidation of bands or tribes of Indians in such manner as to bring large numbers of Indians into association with each other and into greater isolation from the educational influence of intercourse with citizens. A resolution was also adopted providing for the appointment of a committee to consult with the President-elect in regard to the future Indian policy of the govenment. Madrid, First month 7th.-Great terror yet prevails in Malaga, earthquake shocks continuing. Trade is at a standstill, and many shops are closed. The work of relief proceeds slowly, and many villages are destitute of food. The people of Malaga spend the nights in the gardens. At Granada there was a procession of 12,000 persons on the 7th, headed by priests, chaunting and praying for deliverance from further earthquakes. It is estimated that 900 lives have been lost in Granada. King Alphonso has visited personally the suffering provinces, and subscribed $20,000 to the relief fund. Earthquakes have been felt at Geneva, and expect to encounter the Mahdi with forces four times as great. Prime Minister Gladstone has been out of health, but is reported to be recovering his energy, and is said to be daily mendig. Paris, First month 10th.-It is reported that accord is about to be established between France and the African Association in regard to their territorial limits. The Congo Conference can then finish its work rapidly and in harmony. ITEMS. THE orange crop of this season is the largest one ever known. THERE are more than forty female clerks in the banks of Dakota it is stated. THE Washington Monument in Washing. ton is to be lighted with electricity. THE first train from the East to reach Port land, Oregon, in twenty-three days, arrived there on the morning of the 7th inst. IT is estimated that 10,000 men are annually, in this county alone, thrown out of employment by new inventions.-Haverhill Laborer. ENCKE'S COMET is said to have been rediscovered on the night of January 2, at the Vanderbilt University, by E. E. Barnard, at 7.45 o'clock, Washington time. THE substitution of glass flooring for boards continues to increase in Paris, this being especially the case in those business structures in which the cellars are used as offices. THE Board of Trustees of the Columbian University, at a special meeting, upon the unanmedical department, has decided to admit imous recommendation of the faculty of its women to the study of medicine in that institution with all the privileges of instruction now accorded male students. NOTICES. MONTHLY MEETINGS IN PHILADELPHIA. in the Canton of Grisons, as well as in the First mo. 21, Race Street, 3 P. M. On this side of the earth we have advices of earthquake disturbance on the 4th at Santiago de Chili. The latest dispatches give us repetitions of the same, a continuance of earthquake disturbances. England. The eldest son of the Prince of Wales-Prince Edward-has reached his majority. His father does not ask any grant of money for him. London, First month 10th.-On the 12th British forces will start on a march to Metemmah, on the Nile, near Shendy. Here they 22, Spruce Street, 10 A. M. QUARTERLY MEETINGS. First mo. 19, Fairfax, Fairfax, Va. 46 66 66 แ 66 20, Western, Londongrove, Pa. 27, Concord, West Chester, Pa. A Conference on Temperance, under the care of the Quarterly Meeting's Committee, will be held at Green Street Meeting-house, on Sixth-day, the 23d inst, at 7 P. M. Joshua L. Bailey and others are expected to address the meeting. All are invited. "TAKE FAST HOLD OF INSTRUCTION; LET HER NOT GO; KEEP HER; FOR SHE IS THY LIFE." VOL. XLI. PHILADELPHIA, FIRST MONTH 24, 1885. No. 50. EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY AN ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS COMMUNICATIONS MUST BE ADDRESSED AND PAYMENTS MADE TO JOHN COMLY, AGENT, AT PUBLICATION OFFICE, No. 1020 ARCH STREET. TERMS:-TO BE PAID IN ADVANCE. The Paper is issued every week. The FORTY-FIRST Volume commenced on the 16th of Second month, 1884, at Two Dollars and Fifty Cents to subscribers receiving it through mail, postage prepaid. SINGLE NUMBERS SIX CENTS. It is desirable that all subscriptions should commence at the beginning of the volume. REMITTANCES by mail should be in CHECKS, DRAFTS, or P. O. MONEY-ORDERS; the latter preferred. MONEY sent by mail will be at the risk of the person so sending. AGENTS:-Edwin Blackburn, Baltimore, Md. Benj. Strattan, Richmond, Ind. The light that each one possesses or can be fully assured of is often felt to be but small, hence the necessity of drawing near together in friendly communion that the combined wisdom or diviner sense of many minds may be brought to bear on important subjects, and better judgments be reached than would have been possible without such unity of action and unity of feeling. The Society of Friends generally approaches the consideration of business pertaining to the Church by a religious service, seeking through prayerful waiting and religious communion, that condition of forgetfulness of self in which the true spiritual unity of the body can be realized. The "mind of truth" is the expression that has often been used to designate that general sense which settles upon a meeting, baptized into true spiritual unity; and where any selfish spirit desiring to carry some point according to some preconceived plan, and is not so studious of the true heavenly light, as of the wisdom which is more worldly, the beautiful conditions which characterize the true Friends' meeting for discipline or for business are not realized. While authority undoubtedly exists, and is indeed something tangible, it becomes painful Reminiscences of Friends' Schuylkill Meeting Graveyards.... 796 797 798 800 when it becomes sensible, and the tendency is, immediately, to question if it is legitimate. A bold, earnest spirit if found out of harmony with the quiet controlling influences of the body, will be more or less likely to inquire if the general good will not be promoted by some "reformation" of the system which shall level away the prestige and conceded. authority which have been established in the past. Something of this spirit seems to have rested upon the beloved son of David-Poet, Priest and King of Israel, when the monarchy was only in its infancy. Absalom had a cause that was not without its plausible side; and he had natural gifts and graces that made him popular even in the shadow of his father's throne. "In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom." He uses the arts of a demagogue, and he says to every malcontent, "Oh, that I were made judge in the land," until the authority of the throne was undermined. Then follows sorrow and disaster, ending in undying woe for the heart of the aged king, and more complete ruin for the man who in the splendor of his bodily and mental power, sought to sweep away obstructive authority that he might do great things for the party in Israel which he had won to his interest, or that had chosen him for their leader. We have no good reason to doubt this to and unity. In a superficial view we might judge that there might be much fraternal love without unity. But it has ever been found that true Christian love, which has its anchorage in a mutual allegiance to God is the only assurance of real unity. be veritable history, but if it were only alle- | is the question as to the maintenance of love gory, mankind might find in it a lesson of profit for all ages and times. We might say, "O that the king had brought his gifted but wayward son nearer to him, and combined his genius and address with the wisdom and religious experience that made the gray hairs of the royal Psalmist venerable, instead of holding him so long an alien from his house and heart." Both were needed in the true political economy of Israel. Was not the paralyzing and dividing selfishness in the royal family the fault on both sides, and did not something of remorse mingle with king David's fatherly sorrow when he went up mournful to the chamber over the gate, and wept and wailed for the popular and dearly beloved son who should have been the pillar of his throne and the consolation of his age: "Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son !" We have no record of the dying thought or the dying cry of Absalom as he perished miserably upon the spear of the zealous chieftain whose determination was to rescue his king from a dangerous enemy. It may well be that he knew not his father's heart, and died in defiant hatred of the king. Love parental, as well as filial, should be strong as death, but "jealousy is cruel as the grave.' Nothing is more unnatural than is a division of human interests and human society upon the lines of age. The same benificent Divine power which rests in blessing upon the venerable head which is found in the way of righteousness inspires the best energies of the champion who in the full vigor of life, sees possibilities of reform and of advance, and is ready to seize the present as the fruitful and the accepted time. In the Divine order both have their place, and neither can be ignored without grievous loss to the Church. It is related of the broad minded and most liberal, typical Friend, Benjamin Hallowell in his old age, that he said it was well that the aged could die that they might not hinder the right advancement of the times. Yet to him the enthusiasm of the young clung with hope as a leader, for his was the heart of youth, with the head of the sage. Both elements are needed in all right progress, and we must forever deprecate the spirit which would stratify our Society, and so separate those elements of strength which welded together by mutual labor, by Christian love, and by suffering, will develop the greatest attainable excellence. It is a significant fact that the first of the simple queries that mark out to our people what we conceive to be the cardinal principles of the right conduct of life, has reference to faithfulness in public worship; and the second It may, perhaps, be justly claimed that they are inseparable. Where there is earnest love, all the needed patience and condescension which make for the peace of the Church, is natural and inevitable. Again, where all minds are knit together in a common purpose to find the fountain of life and light, there will be no jealousies or fear of each other. It might be supposed that if any preparative meeting, under a sense of great deficiency, should place on record the confession that there no longer exists love and unity among their membership, this would be sufficient to prove that the only right conditions for a legitimate Friends' meeting were absent. Persons estranged from each other, jealous of the influence of one another, and not aiming toward the same goal, are not a part of the Church of Christ for the blessed Elder Brother gave this test of true discipleship: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, that ye have love, one to another." Exact unanimity of opinion has not, in our day, been needful to membership in this society. But it does appear necessary that all, thus banded together, should be seekers after the baptism of the Holy Spirit and be concerned to live in continual mindfulness of the In-dwelling word of life, and so be cemented by this faith and practice, as to act in harmony for the cause of Truth and Righteousness. All Friends recognize the value of this true unity of the spirit which has of old, been held needful to the right action of the Church. Barclay quotes his countryman, George Buchanan, a celebrated Scottish historian, scholar and poet of the preceding century, and classical tutor to Mary Queen of Scots, as thus testifying to the Divine Light in the soul: "God in forming man, set before his mind, as it were, a certain light, by which he may discern things that are vile from things that are honest. Some call this power' nature,' others the law of nature;' I truly judge it to be divine, and am persuaded that nature and wisdom never say different things. Augustine seems to have come to an experimental knowledge of the In-dwelling Word only in his old age: "What is it," he cried, "which shineth in unto me, and smites my heart without hurt, at which I both tremble and am inflamed? I tremble, in so far as I am unlike unto it: and I am inflamed in so far as I am unlike unto it; it is wisdom, wisdom see, perhaps, that we may dwell no longer in which shineth in unto me, and dispelleth my | the truth, live and increase, live and labor cloud, which had again covered me, after I was in the vineyard of the Highest. We shall departed from it, with darkness and the heap of my punishments." Again he exclaims," it is too late that I have loved thee, O thou beautifulness, so ancient and so new! Late I have loved thee, and behold thou wast within, and I was without, and there was seeking thee! Thou dids't call, thou dids't cry, thou dids't break my deafness, thou glancest, thou dids't shine, thou chasedst away my darkness." Such are the recorded expressions of many witnesses of the same Divine Verities of which our martyr fathers were confessors. They intended to form the body whom they drew together into a theocracy, and to realize that not mere common sense or worldly wisdom was the guide and ruler of the Church and People of God, but the Divine Word itself. But who are they who know accurately the voice of the Good Shepherd? They are such as have long listened to the In-speaking Word and obeyed it, and have demonstrated to their brethren by the tenor of their lives to what fold they properly belong. Let such abide, as ever, judges and counsellors in our Israel-these who have so long gone in and out before us, and on whom we have leaned as honored fathers and mothers in the Church and let no unsanctified hands touch the Ark of our testimonies. For Friends' Intelligencer. HOPE FOR THE FUTURE. It would seem that some think our Society is dying out for want of instructors, that the young people cannot endure silent meetings; the old may, and perhaps do, enjoy them, but to keep this class and supply the want we must bring in from the schools some attractive agency. These may have stores of knowledge and an eloquent gift to impart it, but if they have not been taught in the school of Christ they will not draw this class into our enclo sure. Think of the young in the first rise of our Society, when the parents were in prison and their houses of worship closed, these children held their meetings in the street before them, nor were they ashamed to show that they belonged to the despised sect. Even under the law of ceremonies silence was valued, and we hear the injunction, Keep silence before me, O ye islands, and let the people renew their strength; let them come near, then let them speak, let us come together in judgment." And again, "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth, he sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him, he loves to commune with his own heart and be still." A few days ago another religious body in this city, in conference concerning their own work, turned aside slightly from their own special concerns to comment on the attitude of the Society of Friends. One speaker pronounced our Church unprogressive, and declared that that tendency had proved fatal to its existence. We are startled as we see this announcement in the morning paper, but merely pass it by with the remark, that speaker deals in hyperbola. But like most extreme utterIf we go to meeting to be amused, that is ances it has truth in it. Having ceased to one thing, if we go to worship God, and engrow, and losing so many of our green boughs, large our spiritual perceptions in what is is it so very far out of the way for our neigh-heavenly and divine, it is quite another. In bors to call us dead? The wierd prophet of the exile, dwelling apart from his nation by the Babylonian river, was comforted by a vision of marvellous renewals of life and vigor for his people, who were characterized as "dry bones." (Ezekiel 17, 1-15.) They seemed dead indeed; but there came a time of renewal, and the Divine breath was breathed upon them, and they became instinct with the true life, returning again to their best estate. Let it no more be justly said of this people that they are repressive and unprogressive in their tendencies. "Come from the four winds O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live!" Yes, live and bear aloft I have all confidence in the Head of the Church that He will raise up teachers and preachers, clothed with the power He alone can give, to bring back the straying and give them "a name and a place in His house better than sons and daughters." this condition a time of silence is most de- GROWTH FROM ACTION. No faculty is developed, no quality is acquired, no power is gained except by constant exercise; and, if we desire our young people to grow up into valuable men and women, we must accustom them, gradually, but steadily, to assume responsibility, to exert their will and force of character, to give out as well as to take in, to act as well as to learn. Then, life will be a succession of steps naturally following each other, each of which will prepare the way easily and thoroughly for the next, and each of which will bring new | objection to the one word and the preference light, broader views, and higher abilities to for the other is of itself in this case a sort of bear upon increasing duties and responsibilities as they arise.-Public Ledger. For several years past there seems to have been a growing objection amongst Friends to the use of the term "hireling" as applied to the ministry in our discipline, and in many cases the word "paid " has been adopted as an alternative. If I am not mistaken, not only does the objection itself rest upon a misapprehension, but, even if it is well founded, the term "paid" cannot properly be used as a substitute simply because the testimony as set forth in the discipline is only against a mercenary or "hireling ministry," and a "paid ministry is not necessarily a mercenary or "hireling ministry." acknowledgement that they do not represent the same identical thing. The use of words is to convey ideas and to represent things, and the objection to the word “hireling" being that it conveys an unpleasant or harsh idea or represents a harsh thing, what possible object would be gained by substituting "paid "if it does not represent something that is not so harsh? And if not so harsh, then, as a matter of course, something different. The preference for and selection of another word on account of its being less harsh is a tacit acknowledgement that the thing represented is not so bad as the rejected word represents it, and distinctly holds out the inference that our ancient objection to the thing is, at least in a degree, without foundation, and hence it becomes a kind of a recommendation of that thing. "Hireling," in the sense intended, is inseparably connected with the idea of servility. A hireling ministry is a ministry that is, to a greater or less degree, based on bargain and sale, and dependent for its existence on merely human appointments and on remuneration, in short it is a mercenary ministry, and whatever the shape or however small the degree of its appearance, it is always altogether of evil import. "Paid" signifies the condition of having received a recompense appropriate to a service performed. It expresses nothing as to the motives or conditions under which it was performed. And as there can be no possible objection to any one receiving an appropriate recompense for his labor or service, it seems plain enough that "paid ministry" does not necessarily represent anything that is in the least degree rep Perhaps it will occur to some that to admit that a paid ministry is not necessarily a hireling ministry would place a Monthly Meeting in a dilemma every time a member should join another religious denomination, inasmuch as the Meeting would then first have to decide whether he was supporting a hireling ministry or merely a paid ministry, and if it should prove to be merely a paid ministry, the Meeting would be without authority to proceed further in the case. But I think it will be found that this objection is practically without any force. But even if much might be urged in regard to this point, a prospective difficulty should not be permitted to stand in the way of a candid recognition of facts, and as the question whether a member may, un-rehensible. der our discipline, belong to another religious organization, without forfeiting his right in this Society, is not the thing directly before us, it may safely be left to be considered upon its own merits after the facts pertaining to the matter immediately under consideration have first been ascertained. The simple question to receive our present attention being: Is a "paid ministry" necessarily the same in all respects as the "hireling ministry" contemplated by discipline? It is plain that, if this question must be answered in the negative, any Monthly Meeting that adopts the term "paid" instead of "hireling" or deals with a member for supporting a "paid ministry," deals with him upon a charge unknown to and not contemplated by discipline, which is practically to make new discipline which, all will admit, it has no right to do. It may be observed at the start that the A man may do a work and be paid for it without having made a bargain or been hired or even without his having any expectation or regard for pay, and yet having been paid he may very appropriately be called a paid workman, but certainly, under the circumstances, he may not be called a mercenary or hireling. The support of a mercenary or hireling ministry bears the evidence of being an evil upon its very face, whereas a ministry would be a paid ministry though nothing was received but the recompense" which the Apostle says that Moses had respect unto. Moreover, who can present a single valid objection to any persons, who may see fit to do so, paying a gospel minister of their substance that he may not suffer want on account of his being called away from his own business by that service? If any should contend that this would not |