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exceed eighty pounds , a donation of £ 50 ; Or pel-haps the following may j > e deemed preferable to allowing money for repairs , viz . a donation not exceeding 251 . to be applied according to the following plan ; to such
Unitarian minister , whose yearly income from his congregation does not exceed the sum of S 5 L per annum , a donation not exceeding 25 /* ; not having more than 4 OZ ., a donation not to exceed 20 L ; not more than 45 / , to have 15 / . ; and not more than 5 OZ ., to have 10 / .
If after these donations a surplus should yet remain , I suggest that the whole of such surplus should be applied to the classical instruction of such youths as rtiay be designed for the Unitarian ministry , and whose circumstances in life may require it .
With regard to the manner in which money is to be raised to answer the end designed , the following calculation will , I trust , be found rather under than overrated . Taking for
granted that there are in the kingdom two hundred Unitarian congregations that could afford frotti their Fellowship Funds the small sura of seven pounds ten shillings per annum , to be remitted to the General
Fellowship Fund Committee in London , it would form a sum of one thousand five hundred pounds per annum , and would assist in building five places of worship annually ; and if the remainder should not be applied to repairs , it may be found highly beneficial in the cases of ministers as
before-mentioned . The contributions ought not to be confined to the sum of seven pounds ten shillings per annum ; but as a sum should be fixed , that sum is the lowest that ought to be remitted or accepted , as it would seem rather unjust that a congregation remitting fifty shillings , or even five pounds per annum , should receive the same
advantages as those who subscribe seven pounds ten , shillings , or probably more , and who could not be allowed to receive more than the sums fixed by the regulation . I conceive that no
congregation would require a place of worship to be built for thern , unless there was a reasonable prospect of its being tilted with hearers ; therefore every congregation , wherever they may assemble , should set on foot
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a Fellowship Fund , which as it is a small subscription of only one penny a-week tcr those who do not choose or cannot afford to pay more , is consequently liable to the fewest possible objections , ft seems necessary as a
matter of regulation , that those only who have Fellowship Funds , and can contribute their annual seven pounds ten shillings , should be allowed to receive the donations for building or repairs . With respect to the plaa
mentioned for ministers , it should be left to the committee to manage according to the best of their judgment ; as congregations who may want , and thankfully receive sqch a donation for a minister , may neither want buildings nor repairs .
Fellowship Funds , if persevered in generally , and the remittances annually made , would keep the London General Fellowship Fund Committee iii a state of perpetuity , with ample means to meet the various retjiiirements which rn&y be made of them .
I by no liiearis wish to divert the Fellowship Funds from their original purpose , one part of which is tcTdistribute Unitarian tracts in their immediate neighbourhood ; but as
another part of the plan is to render assistance to such congregations as may be building or wishing to build places of worship , I think the plan now submitted is calculated to answer that
end , and will , if acted uport , prevent in a great measure the necessity of congregations sendihg their pastors round the kingdom , as is now frequently done ^ to make collections at an unavoidable expense , nearly equal
in some cases to 25 per cent , on the amounts Collected . A Fellowship Fund society ,. if conducted with spirit , will afford seven pounds ten shillings per arinum , independent of what may be employed in the distribution of tracts at home , and thus become more
extensively beneficial . I have here given outlines of a plan which I am aware may be improved upon , and for that purpose I leave it to more comprehensive and intelligent minds . I hope it will tend to place Fellowship Funds in a more important point of view , and in some degree stimulate to a more general adoption of them .
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Mr . 7 . Fisher on Fellowship Funds * 415
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1819, page 415, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1774/page/15/
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