No one has ever been the worse off for doing his duty toward God. “The Path to Wealth” by “A Blacksmith” contains a chapter of voluntary testimonies given at a public meeting. Twenty-nine testimonies were given either directly or indirectly. The occupations of the persons were as follows: Five not named, six ministers, four farmers, two merchants, and one each of the following: General agent, Y. M. C. A. secretary, student, clerk, lady stenographer, principal of schools, shoemaker, young lady telegraph operator who had a mother and sister to support, and a missionary from India, who told the story of one of his native helpers, Bhelsari Naiah, who had been tithing for three months when this conversation took place. “Well, Bhelsari, how does the tithing system work?” “Capitally, sir.” “Ah, how is that? You were always complaining of being hard up, and even in debt, when you used your whole income for self; now, you give one-tenth to God, you have no complaints.” “Ah, sir, the nine-tenths, with God’s blessing, is better far than the ten-tenths used to be without it.” I have received many testimonies to the same effect. Mr. Thomas Kane, of Chicago, has had thousands and thousands of such replies, so that we may safely say that Bhelsari’s answer must stand as the voice of general experience.
Not only have men tried it for themselves, but it has been tried in business where firms have kept a strict account of the Lord’s part and disbursed it for charity and have not found the Lord’s promise wanting. Of late years it has come to be a prominent part in the system of finance of various congregations. What is known as the Tithe Covenant Plan originated in Wesley Chapel in Cincinnati about eight years ago. The central idea of this plan is based upon the literal interpretation of Mal. 3:10, “Bring ye the whole tithe into the storehouse, etc.” The members bring in every week in an unmarked envelope the tithe of their income for that week and all is counted together and then distributed by the officers of the Church according to a previously arranged schedule. This congregation, being a downtown one, was about to give up from lack of support, when this plan was started and now it is one of the most active churches in that city and is the most liberal of any church in the city or conference in its support of charity and missions.
The Third United Presbyterian Church of Chicago adopted this plan April 1, 1901. The Methodist Church of Shelbyville, Ind., adopted it on June 1, 1901. The Memorial Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, Ind., adopted it on July 1, 1901. These were the churches that had made actual trial of it, when the Tithe Conference was held at Winona in August, 1902. Since then several have taken it up, notably the Delaware Avenue Baptist Church of Buffalo, N. Y., and the Eighth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. Mr. Blynn Yates of Buffalo, N. Y., has consented to act as the distributer of information in respect to the working of this plan and after the Conference at Winona this year literature will be issued which will give data concerning what some of us believe promises to be a mighty factor in the Church’s progress in the years to come. In all these congregations where this plan has been given a fair trial it has wrought wonders and the testimonies that will soon be at your disposal will be a revelation, I judge, to many who have been in despair almost over the problem of financing the kingdom. It will show that God has a plan and that the plan will meet the needs of the Church to-day, as it always has in the past, when honestly administered. No congregation need fear to give it a fair trial. As the colored preacher said, “I hab nebber known a church killed by too much gibbin to de Lawd. If der should be such a church, and I should know about it, I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go to dat church, and I’d clamber up its moss-covered roof, and I’d sit straddle of its ridge pole, and I’d cry aloud, ‘Blessed am de dead dat die in de Lawd.’” If any one tries this method and faithfully proves the Lord therewith, and then goes under, it certainly will be time to say, “Blessed am de dead dat die in de Lawd.”
Many give more than the tenth and should do so. I know some who give one-fifth, and higher proportions up to that height attained by one whom it has been my privilege to meet who gives nine-tenths of his income and lives on the one-tenth. When we have paid our due to the Lord, we still have nine-tenths out of which to meet the call of the gospel in such words as these, “Give good measure. Freely ye have received, freely give. Abound in this grace. Sell that thou hast and give to the poor.” A man once gave such a large gift to missions as to call forth words of surprise. He said, “It is one-quarter of what I own. I found that as I was prospered my money engrossed more and more of my thoughts. I am not going to be a slave to the money God gave me, and I am going to conquer the love of money by giving it away.” That was in accord with the word of Christ to the rich young ruler and any one who is becoming a slave of money ought not only to give a tenth, but might better give a quarter or a half or even all his money away, rather than die as the fool died who laid up treasure for himself and was not rich toward God. Christ commended the widow who gave all and cared for her as he will for all who honor Him with their substance. The tithe has been given by all races and conditions in the past and no objection on account of race or condition can hold against it now.
While we might have cut short much debate by saying that the tithe is not a Jewish institution but is an ancient law of the race and we are no more called upon to prove its obligation than we are that of the law of the Sabbath or of marriage, yet we have tried to present the case as briefly and yet thoroughly as possible within reasonable limits. But, as I said at Winona last year, suppose you deny all this evidence and refuse to be convinced of its obligation, there is one plea that you cannot gainsay. It is the one system that has never failed to get the money. The history of the past shows this. The enemies of the Evangelical Church recognize it. The Mormons, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Dowieites all find the tithe sufficient to carry on their wonderful propagandas and demonstrate the argument that God’s tenth if rightly used by His Church would enable us soon to take the world for Christ. All other methods of raising money pale into insignificance when compared with this which has always, in all ages, and among all classes of peoples proved sufficient to do great things in the name of the religion or irreligion in behalf of which it was used. The simple argument, It works, ought to appeal to the many struggling Church workers who are at their wits’ end to know how to meet expenses. That mere tithe-paying will bring spiritual blessing, I do not claim. The reverse is true, as the Pharisee testifies. But tithing according to God’s plan and in the spirit which He has laid down in His word must and will bring great blessing.
One of our missionaries in India tells of a native who was an earnest Christian and a believer in tithing. He had a friend who was converted and he was anxious to have him tithe also. After some effort to persuade him and seemingly without avail, he gave his friend a sound thrashing and enforced the tithe by brawn and not by persuasion of conscience. This was zeal without knowledge. You can no more make a man give than you can make him pray. You can make a man say words, but it is not prayer. You may make him hand out money unwillingly, but that is not giving as I view it. I like to define giving as follows: Giving is a cheerful, willing, liberal, intelligent, quiet, regular and prayerful exercise of a God-given grace. This grace of giving, like all God’s gifts, comes with the asking and stays with the using. It is no more possible for a man to have the grace of giving without asking for it and making proper use of it, than it is to have the Spirit for service without asking for and making use of that gift. I would not attempt to force this system on any unprayerful person or people. But, Oh that the Church might awake to its glorious provision and its wonderful privilege in this conformity to the law of giving! When a man asks for the grace of giving and receives the impulse to open his purse to abound in this grace, then comes to him God’s rule, The Tenth is holy unto Me as a first-fruit of this grace, and immediately he begins to see where it is that a man crosses over the boundary line of selfishness and steps into the plane of devotion to God, and he takes the step and rejoices in it. As he walks on in the glad consciousness of duty done, he begins to rejoice in larger manifestations of this grace and meets other and larger opportunities for the gospel’s sake and for the Master’s sake, and thus the fulness of the blessing of this grace flows into his soul and he knows the meaning of abounding in this grace also.
What has been said of individual experience, may be just as truly said of the experience that comes to any congregation that will follow this same plan of God, as some of our congregations can testify. The blessing is not only financial, but it is spiritual in a large and increasing sense. Would that John Knox might stir up the ministry now as he is said to have done in his day in Scotland when he said, “There is no impiety against which it is more requisite you set yourselves in this time. Repent, therefore, and amend your own neglect in this behalf and call upon others for amendment.” Max Mueller is said also to have written to a young minister, “When one thinks what this world of ours would be, if at least this minimum of Christianity were a reality, one feels that you are right in preaching this simple duty in season and out of season, until people see that without fulfilling it, every other profession of religion is a mere sham.”
The ringing words of Bishop Potter at the dedication of Grace Chapel in New York city, while they may apply peculiarly to the Episcopal Church, yet are wholesome words to all God’s people.
“The growth of wealth and of luxury, wicked, wasteful, and wanton, as before God I declare that luxury to be, has been matched step by step by a deepening and deadening poverty which has left whole neighborhoods of people practically without hope and without aspiration. At such a time, for the church of God to sit still and be content with theories of its duty outlawed by time and long ago demonstrated to be grotesquely inadequate to the demands of a living situation, this is to deserve the scorn of men and the curse of God! Take my word for it, men and brethren, unless you and I and all those who have any gift or stewardship of talents, or means, of whatsoever sort, are willing to get up out of our sloth and ease and selfish dilettanteism of service, and get down among the people who are battling amid their poverty and ignorance—young girls for their chastity, young men for their better ideal of righteousness, old and young alike for one clear ray of the immortal courage and the immortal hope—then verily the church in its stately splendor, its apostolic orders, its venerable ritual, its decorous and dignified conventions, is revealed as simply a monstrous and insolent impertinence!”
Seeing that this indictment is well placed, why should not any person or people pay to God at least the tenth, as His minimum requirement? The need has not ceased. We have the poor with us. The ministry is appointed to live by the gospel. The field is not Judea alone, but the world. Opportunities of beneficence are multifold. Men are waiting and hungering for the gospel. Men are longing to take it to them. Means we must have. Our greatest need, as before stated, from the human side is money, not men or machinery.