nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT
Relief and Annuity Board
THOMAS J. WATTS. Executive Secretary
INTRODUCTION
In compliance with the request of the executive committee of the convention,
the Relief and Annuity Board's twenty-eighth annual report has been so written
and arranged as to give^ to Southern Baptists an historical account of the
work of ministerial relief in the South before this Board was created, and also
to give an historical review of the operations of the Board in relief and annuities
since its creation from 1918 to December 31, 1944. Then, will follow the report
of our current operations during the year 1945, including the first quarter of
1946, and finally there is given a preview of the probable activities and achievements
of the Board during the months and years that lie ahead.
The chapter headings, therefore, are as follows:
Chapter I. Looking Backward from 1918.
Chapter II. An Historical Review. 1918-1925.
Chapter III. An Historical Review. 1925-1944.
Chapter IV. The Current View. 1945-April 1, 1946.
Chapter V. The Preview.
CHAPTER I. LOOKING BACKWARD FROM 1918
CONTENTS
*
Southern Baptist Activities in Ministerial Relief Prior to 1918.
Preparation of Ministers for the Service of the Churches.
Better Support of Ministers by the Churches.
Agitation for Adequate Aid for Aged Ministers.
The Origin and History of the Movement Looking to the Creation of a Board
of Relief and Annuities.
Sunday School Board Provides Initial Financial Foundation.
Appointment of Commission to Survey the Field.
The Commission's Report.
CHAPTER I. LOOKING BACKWARD FROM 1918
Southern Baptists prior to 1918 were not wholly unmindful of their obligation
to provide sustenance for their aged and disabled ministers and for the
widows and orphans of their deceased ministers. We may be sure that they
did much more for their faithful retired spiritual leaders than was ever fully
revealed in their reperts to their Associations and Conventions.
Our people generally speaking have loved and even revered their preachers.
They accepted Paul's great word in First Corinthians 9:14: "Even so hath the
Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel."
Yet the social implications of that and other Scriptures in both the Old and
New Testaments have been sadly overlooked by most of us. They are overlooked
today by far too many among us. In the book of Ecclesiastes we are
told that, "There was a little city with few'men within it; and there came a
great king against it, and besieged if, and built great bulwarks against it. Now
there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city;
yet no man remembered that same poor man." In spite of the obvious implication
of this passage from Ecclesiastes we hasten to affirm that a similar failure
upon the part of Southern Baptists to provide support for their "poor wise men"
has been due not so much to ingratitude as to want of thought. It is a comforting
fact that at least as far back as fifty years ago most of the states in the
Southern Baptist Convention promoted in some measure the cause of ministerial
relief and in several states ministerial relief boards were organized and were
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