HOW GODLINESS IS PROFITABLE
Deacon Smith—A question was proposed to this class, the last Sabbath Brother Dole taught us, and it was requested that the class consider and report the result of their investigations at a future session. May I now bring it up? The question was this:
“Have we any reason to expect that a Christian farmer, as a Christian, will be any more successful in his farming operations, than an impenitent sinner—and if not, how is it that godliness is profitable unto all things? Or, in other words, does the motive with which one prosecutes his secular business, other things being equal, make any difference in the pecuniary results?”
Mrs. Dixon gave it as her opinion, at the time, that the motive did affect the pecuniary results.
Now the practical result to which this conclusion leads, is such as will justify us in our judging of Mrs. Dixon’s true moral character, next fall, by her success in her farming operations this summer.
My opinion differs from hers on this point; and my reasons are here given in writing since I deem it necessary for me, under the existing state of feeling toward me, to put into a written form all I have to say, in the class, to prevent misrepresentation.
Should I be appropriating an unreasonable share of time, as a pupil, Mr. Smith, to occupy four minutes of your time in reading them? I should like very much to read them, that the class may pass their honest criticisms upon them.
AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION.
I think we have no intelligent reason for believing that the motives with which we prosecute our secular business, have any influence in the pecuniary results.
My reasons are common sense reasons, rather than strictly Bible proofs, viz.: I regard man as existing in three distinct departments of being, viz., his physical or animal, his mental or intellectual, his moral or spiritual; and each of these three distinct departments are under the control of laws, peculiar to itself; and these different laws do not interchange with, or affect each other’s department.