The Duty of Giving Away
A STATED PROPORTION OF OUR INCOME.
By WILLIAM ARTHUR, A.M.[^2]
(Continued from page 143.)
I PLEAD FOR THE GOSPEL’S SAKE, that it may be fitly represented. That is not its own word; but one almost fears to use its own, it is so strong. “That ye may adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things.” Adorn that doctrine! See it so pure, so bright, lovely in the likeness of its Author, and then say where is the life that is to be to it, not a veil to dim its beauties, not a spot to mar its charm, but an ornament—what a jewel is to the brow of a fair woman, an attraction for eyes and admiration!
Where is the life that really adorns the gospel? Surely it is not that of a man who calls himself a Christian, and yet to whom no one will turn in his need, as to a certain friend, for body or for soul. Alas for that man from whose door a neighbour in distress instinctively turns away; to whom collectors in any holy work never think of going! Oh, who would rest under a roof upon which no man’s blessing comes? Not long ago one rich man was letting a splendid seat to another rich man, and, mistaking the character of his customer, he stated, among the many attractions of the place, this great attraction—”And their are no charities!” Ah! lay not your dying head on that man’s pillow!
I plead for the gospel’s sake, that it may be diffused. The Lord’s commission is, that we “go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” “To every creature!” Let us remember this injunction. While a human being lives to whom the good tidings of great joy have never been told, our commission is not executed. How much has been done already towards its execution? Half the race of man, and more, are this day without preachers of the gospel! And even within Christian lands, numbers of holy works for which the need is reproachfully plain remain undone, because the Church of God is not sufficiently self-denying to give the means. It is easy to sympathise with missions; to applaud earnest speeches, and kindle with lively hymns.
But listen! the winds are sweeping, and have been sweeping from the beginning, over the peaks of the Himalaya and on the shores of Lake Tsad. Now it is the rustle of the breeze, now the shock of the tempest ; but listen ! Does either sound on the ear of the heathen the name “JESUS?” The waves are rolling, and from the beginning have been rolling, on the shores of Fiji and of Japan ; but does either the gentle ripple, or the boom of the mighty wave, sound the word “Mercy?”
No ; if the story is to be told, it must be told by the voice of living men. And whence are the means to come, to send forth messengers to tell the tidings of grace “to every creature?” Dr. Morgan, in his Essay, has said that some such change as was effected in science by the discovery of gravitation, or in mechanics by that of steam, would be effected in the powers of the Church for good by the general adoption of the observance for which we plead. And whether we look at your wealthy Establishments or our poorer Societies, it is certain that were all their members but brought up even to the practice of giving a tenth, then would the ability of your Establishments to flood the earth with Christian agencies be increased to the astonishment of mankind ; while our Societies, though in a lower degree, would put on a new and hitherto unheard of, might.
We are drawing near to the hour when we shall take flight from this shore for another. At whatsoever moment we depart, many other souls, from all lands, will be departing too Who would wish that in the flight of souls of which he will be one, the majority should be of those who had never heard of Jesus? If this is not to be our case, if that name is to sound on all ears, and to be invoked in all tongues, up and be earnest ! Spare not your goods, that the poor in soul may be rich at last.
I plead—reverently it must be said—FOR THE LORD’S SAKE. It is true that all idea of giving a benefit to Him is for ever excluded. “Is it any gain to him that thou makest thy ways perfect?” The sun He has set in our firmament has rejoiced our world from Adam until now. On him all its beauty and its life depend. Now that he is hidden, the rose has no blush, the lily no whiteness, the meadow no green ; a cheerless gloom reduces them all to sameness. To-morrow when he reappears, all the beauties of the landscape will come forth anew. Suppose that then we were all seized with an impulse of admiration, and desired to show how much we valued his services to man, not all the powers of our race could send him up a ray to make him grander.
He is the emblem of His Maker. In one eternal outflood benefits stream from Him upon His creatures. Life, joy, redemption—all come from Him. After ages of daily debt, were all our race this moment seized with a passion of gratitude—did every human heart ask, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits?” then, though every bosom throbbed, and every hand strained, we could not add one ray to His glory, one step to the elevation of His throne, one hairbreadth to the extent of His dominions, or one moment to the duration of His reign. Inhabiting eternity, He sits “in the high and the holy place,” as far above our power to benefit as to injure Him, equally incapable of accession and decay.
Yet He intrusts to us interests that are dear to Him ; and, therefore—
I plead for the Lord’s sake, that His image may be worthily reflected.
The inanimate works of His hand tell much of His strength and skill ; the lower animals much of His wisdom to contrive and His might to control : but all this they tell not to themselves, but to their superior—man. They are but works of His, not children, who can show His image, or be “partakers of the Divine nature.” From them man can learn nothing as to his Maker’s mind on moral questions, on the points wherupon the deepest anxieties of the conscience turn—right and wrong, justice, pardon, judgment, and the future. It is only through man that his fellow-men can see the image of God—man, that wonderful creature whose complex nature unites the lowest to the highest worlds, bringing matter, animal and spirit, into one being—a being who, on one extreme, is equal with the clod, and on the other, by the communing of the Spirit, reaches to the throne of the Highest. In him, and in him alone, the image of the holy God may be so reflected that men here shall learn to “glorify their Father who is in heaven.”
But how does he reflect this image who, professing to be a child of God, is yet known to delight in holding and in storing, but to feel a pain in giving ? Nothing can be more strictly opposite to the Divine nature than this. The unceasing action of that nature is to pour out unrequited bounties. Return or gain it knows not ; and so does it delight in bounty, that no man gives to another in the Lord’s name, but He counts the deed as done to Himself. Blessed is that human being in whose goodness some mind first discerns glimpses of the goodness of God !
I plead for the Lord’s sake, that His claims may be vindicated.
I have already said that many who are willing to look upon Him as God of the world to come feel as if this world’s property was not so directly His and under His hand. For the Creator’s glory and the creature’s rest, it is needful that all be taught that the gold and silver, the harvest’s yield, flocks, herds, and fisheries, are all His property ; that whatsoever man has in his hand is there only in trust and stewardship, not created nor yet retained by his power ; that a Hand unseen can at any moment empty his hand, and a Mind unseen blight the fruit of a life’s prudence by the mistake of a day. Go, then, and assert the Lord’s claims ; go and teach man’s stewardship, not in word, but in deed. Steadily devote the first-fruits of all wherewith you may be entrusted to holy uses. Let your daily actions say in your neighbour’s ears, ” Freely ye have received, freely give !”
I plead for the Lord’s sake, that His due praise may be rendered.
In speaking of the effect of Christian liberality, St. Paul tells us that it does not stop at those who are benefited, but passes on, in a certain sense, to the Lord Himself—”abounds by many thanksgivings to God.” To abound does not mean to suffice, but to more than suffice; not only to fill a vessel, but to wave out, or overflow from it. Thus, when an act of Christian goodness fills a suffering heart with joy, it not only thanks the human hand that comforts it, but overflows in the words, “THANK GOD.” There is an ear, an open ear, which never closes to the cry of want; but when it listens from heaven to the children of men, to hear if there be any that thank God, often it listens in vain—often hears praises for the creature, murmurs and blasphemies for the Creator. Oh, would you count it a little thing if, through your own deeds, that ear ever and anon heard a fervent “Thank God?” Of all the hands that make melody, none raises such music as his whose touch on the heart-keys of the despairing changes a murmur into a thrilling “Thank God!” Give, then, freely give, that some poor man who was ready to think that charity was dead on earth and mercy in heaven, may bless you; and, feeling that it was God who sent you to his side, may cry, “Thank God!” Give, freely give, that the sons of heathen fathers, of cannibals and demon-worshippers, may make scenes which have echoed only to whoop or yell, or din of orgies, resound with the Christian “Praise God!”
I PLEAD FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, that you may prosper. The habit of stedfastly giving first-fruits of all you receive, tends to prosperity, by the double force of a natural means and a Divine blessing. As a natural means it works by promoting order and economy. One reason why many tradesmen fail is that they do not, in due time and with sufficient frequency, ascertain precisely where they are. He who is determined that all his increase shall pay its first-fruits to the glory of his Saviour must ascertain what that increase is. Again: one reason why many persons of fixed income are miserably before their means, is because they have never carefully apportioned to each branch of their expenditure its due share of their income. Were one portion held sacred, on which no claim whatever should touch, an efficient check would be set up against random living.
The habits of order and economy thus acquired would work together with the blessing which is assured to him who honours the Lord with the first-fruits of all his increase. That a man living steadily up to this principle will prosper I have no manner of doubt. The very night before I left London, I asked a valued friend of mine who had adopted the principle of giving away a tenth in early life, and whom the prospering hand of God had raised from humble beginnings to a position of great and valuable influence, if he ever knew a case in which a man had set out on that principle, and persevered in it, and then failed in life. He answered, “Not one.”
Worldly men are often led to doubt whether a blessing does attend the labour of a pious man; for they see men who profess religion suddenly brought down. But they must ask whether these men have been faithful to their religion. It often happens that one who begins life well, and is liberal while he has little, yields to that fatal tendency, which is strong in all, to love money in proportion as it increases. As they become richer in hand, they become poorer in heart. As they acquire more they give less. Since coming on this platform (Dublin), a letter has been put into my hand, referring to a case of one who had when poorer been in the habit of giving a pound to a certain good work; now that he is wealthy he gives half-a-crown. And only the other day I heard of a miserable creature, who is what we call a very rich man, who, when applied to in a very urgent case by two ministers for a family in need, did at last promise five shillings. But meeting one of the ministers afterwards, he told him he found he could not give it; for he had so many houses, and had now to pay an increased tax, that he could not spare so much. Ah! how such copper souls are to be pitied! But these cases only represent a large class. And is it to be wondered at that if religious men thus allow gold to choke up the springs of feeling, the Lord should smite them? You worldly men, do not judge by such cases! These men were false to their religion, and it is fitting that a blight should overtake them—indeed, that blight may be their salvation. But he who steadfastly sets apart for the Lord the first portion of all his gains, checks his love of money on the threshold; and by increasing the proportion as his gains increase, he checks the terrible bent to a progressive love of it; so that it is safe for himself, and good for the Church, that he should prosper. But how can he prosper who gives a tenth of little, but, when Providence makes it much, thinks his tenth too much to give? Even to that depth of baseness can one poor nature go. Such men, not only in substance, but in very form, “rob God,” and may be met by Him with that stark and frightful charge. And if it may be said of other wrongful modes of getting wealth, surely it may of this: “As a partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.”
I plead for your own sake, that you may escape the curse of a carnal mind. It is possible for a man so to drown his spiritual powers in sordid passion that the soul within him ceases to have any action but for concerns of the market. Of its high faculties he cannot rob it: it is, and it will be, a soul, with the inherent lights and forces of a soul. But all these he presses into the ignoble service of self-gathering. It still has its judgment, capable of deep and holy themes; but this is kept ever poring upon problems lying within the three columns—pounds, shillings, and pence. It has its imagination; but this, instead of taking flights to a better country, only dwells on more gold, more houses, more land, more state. It has its fear; but this, forgetting all things really fearful, shudders at nothing except losses. And even its hope, though unquenchable, aspiring only after property, does not wing the soul for heaven, but earths it deeper in self. Thus the poor soul is totally shut out from its native air, and the whole man sinks into a machine—a most wonderful and elaborate machine, worked by spirit-power, for the single use of scraping, scraping, scraping gold!
What, you applaud this! It is far too true to be applauded. There are hundreds of souls in Belfast just like that; and if you would not have your soul degraded into mere spirit-power for working a gold-rake, spring up, and, appealing for help to the Spirit who is over all, go and teach your hands to do works of generosity, instead of teaching your soul to do works of self.
I plead for your own sake, that you may increase in purity and heavenliness of mind. It was our Redeemer who first showed the way to make money a means of inclining our affections toward the inheritance of the saints in light. He said, “Sell that ye have and give alms; provide yourself bags which wax not old” (is not this what you would covet? “bags which wax not OLD?“), “a treasure in the heavens, where not thief approacheth nor moth corrupteth.” Now, mark the philosophy of this: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” So that by gradually laying up your treasure in heaven, your heart will gradually follow it there; and thus money, which some treat as capable only of being a bond and a burden, may become to you a connecting wire with the Throne of retributions, and a stimulant to hope for “the resurrection of the just.” A farmer who loves to see a full barn, and also to receive in market the price of his crops, yet foregoes the market and reduces the store in his barn, casts away his precious grain out of his hand, out of his sight, and leaves it buried, lost as to immediate return, trusting it wholly to the bosom of earth and the eye of Heaven. What effect does this portion of his treasure produce upon him? It turns his thoughts away from the barn, from the market—from the pride of the one and the gold of the other. It leads his eye often up to the heavens, and his thoughts forward to the coming harvest-day.
Go, then, and sow, not sparingly, but bountifully. Foregoing the proud store, foregoing the present recompense, cast your treasure out of your grasp, out of your sight, cast it with a broad hand and a glad heart; leave it there unseen, in the soil of eternity, and under the suns of heaven. Even here the fruit will be that, by degree, your mind will set itself more strongly on the joys that never wane; and when the harvest-day sets in how many will be fain that they had sowed as you!
I plead for your own sake, that you may have some good of your money even to eternity. In the passage just referred to, our Redeemer shows how we may, by a heavenly use of earthly goods, lay up treasure in heaven. An apostle tells us of another treasure which, by means of money, we may “heap together for the last days.” But this is a treasure of “miseries which shall come upon you.” He who, to amass wealth, keeps back the labourer’s hire, or falls into other “fraud”—surely not excepting the fraud which deprives the Lord of the beneficent use of His own gifts—is, in heaping up money for this world, heaping up “treasure for the last days.” While the gold and silver distributed for the Lord’s sake, to benefit the souls and the bodies of men, will all be found turned into incorruptible treasure “at the resurrection of the just;” this gold and silver, which no thank-offerings hallowed, and no poor man blessed, on which the eye of the needy looked wistfully, and for which the works of God’s Church appealed in vain—this, too, will reappear; its “rust shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.” This, O money-lover, is the way in which you have heaped treasure “together for the last days!”
“Oh, I have not been selfish! It is not for myself I have got something together. I know I must have it. It is for my children I have saved.” Well, perhaps it would have been a blessing to your children had they been left just with the means of honourably starting in life—the rest depending, under God, on their own conduct. Perhaps the stores you have painfully gathered will breed contentions over your grave, and then hurry your children to folly and to sin—ay, perhaps, to poverty.
You have saved for your children! We are ready to admit that in this, if moderately done, you are a public benefactor; for he who finds a family competing with the poor in the labour market, and leaves it in a condition to employ them instead of competing with them, does a general service. But while you have been saving for your children, what have you saved for yourself? In a week your will may be read; and is it possible that all the savings of your life are invested where they will then be in the hands of others, and nothing invested where it will come to account for you? As with our life, so with our money: he that saveth his money shall lose it; and he who, for the Lord’s sake and the gospel’s sake, loses his wealth shall find it. The only money we save for ourselves is what we give to the Lord. From the moment you depart hence—and how long is that moment away?—not one farthing of all you ever handled will remain to you, except that which you freely gave away. When all the rest is in the hands of others, this will abide for you, and at the great day will be apportioned to you, in new forms, and with wondrous increase, before all eyes that ever counted gold, or even melted with benevolence. Then, if you would save anything for yourself, if you would have any enjoyment from your possessions beyond this uncertain life, go and “put on Christ;” let your own character disappear under His; your own modes of judging and acting give place to His. Give yourself first to Him, and then to the Church and the good works the Church has to do; and then shall you “lay up in store against the time to come.”
“Ah, but I should not like to die poor!” Not like to die poor! For my part I should wish to die rich.
WHO DIES RICH? He
who, whether he leaves much, or little or nothing behind him, has treasure laid up in heaven. He dies rich.
WHO DIES POOR? He who, whatever he leaves behind him, has nothing laid up before him. He dies poor.
[^2]: This excellent address was delivered about fifty years ago in the Victoria Hall, Belfast, the Bishop of Down in the chair.—ED.