11. Do you, as a Church, exercise a loving and watchful care over your younger members; promoting their instruction in fundamental Christian truth, and in the scriptural grounds of our religious principles; and manifesting an earnest desire that, through the power of Divine grace, they may all become established in the faith and hope of the gospel? 12. Do you fulfil your part as a Church, and as individuals, in promoting the cause of truth and righteousness, and the spread of the Redeemer’s kingdom, at home and abroad? (1875.) NOTE B. Home Mission Committee of the Yearly Meeting. The desire felt by many Friends that the Society should, in a more systematic manner than was formerly thought necessary, recognize and provide for what is called “evangelistic” and “pastoral” work, led, in 1882, to the appointment of a Committee of the Yearly Meeting on “Home Missions.” This Committee began its work by inviting the co-operation of the Monthly and Quarterly Meetings, and in its first Annual Report it mentions that ten of the Quarterly Meetings had appointed Committees to correspond with it; in the next year thirteen of the Quarterly Meetings were thus in correspondence with the Home Mission Committee; and in 1887 the Report states that the Home Mission Committee itself includes members of every Quarterly Meeting except one. In 1888, the number of Friends working in connection with the Home Mission Committee was nineteen. The Report of 1889 speaks of a considerable extension of the work of the Committee, but does not give the number of workers. The donations and subscriptions received by the Committee in the year ending May, 1889, amounted to £2333. The work undertaken by “Home Mission Friends” is of various kinds; such as conducting first day schools, Bible classes, temperance meetings, lecturing on Friends’ principles, in some neighbourhoods visiting the sick and the poor, and in various ways endeavouring to build up and strengthen meetings which seem to be in need of help. Notwithstanding the large measure of support which the Committee has met with, there are many Friends who feel very serious hesitation about this practice of providing “pastoral care,” and who fear lest it should tend to weaken, if not to destroy, the force of our testimony against a paid or humanly appointed ministry. The danger is obvious; and I shall not attempt to estimate the degree in which it can be averted, or the force of the reasons for encountering it. I will content myself with making from the Reports of the Committee a few extracts bearing upon this question.