GENEROUS GESTURE.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20565, 6 June 1932, Page 9

GENEROUS GESTURE.

MINISTER FORGOES STIPEND. [THE PBESB Special Sendee.] AUCKLAND, June 4. At the monthly business meeting of tho Baptist Tabernacle Church, certain reductions were made in the salaries paid by the church as the result of prevailing conditions. , Identifying himself with the present distress, the minister, the Rev. Joseph W. Kemp, announced that he had decided to relinquish his fixed stipend, and that he would receive from the church only such an amount as was available after every other expense .had been met. By this method, he said, the church would never be faced with a deficit, and he would gladly place himself on an equality with missionaries who made the provision for their necessities a matter of faith in God through the generosity of His people. This decision of Mr Kemp's had been previously laid down so definitely to the officers that they submitted it to the church for consideration. The members expressed themselves as greatly appreciating the ideals leading to this action, and in view of the minister's insistence, could only accept it in the spirit in which it was made. It was felt that it would unite the church in closer fellowship, as well as afford a practical application of a Christian principle in sympathy with the present wide distress.