GIVING, VIEWED FROM A COMMONPLACE STAND-POINT.
REV. SAM’L SCOVILLE.
We think this whole matter of giving is put so high sometimes that it gets clear out of sight of common people. We love now and then to put it down upon the basis of common virtues and moralities and see how it looks.
Motives, springing from the highest spiritual insight and experience, are good and always in order, but they are not essential to a fair judgment nor to proper action in this matter. A man may have much less than John’s spirituality or Paul’s experience to decide that there is a glaring inconsistency in praying for the building up of God’s kingdom on the earth, and then withholding the means necessary to that end; in praying that the Gospel may fly to earth’s remotest bound, and then refusing to contribute to the amount of a single wing feather to help its flight.
It does not take a great deal of spiritual insight to see that we cannot serve God and mammon at the same time in our churches with advantage, any more than we can in our own hearts, and that if the Judas of worldliness carries the bag, there is going to be a betrayal of the Master some day. The most common of common sense judgment is all that is needed for so simple a conclusion.
And it is not necessarily any high revelation required, but only an appreciation and approval of square dealing, to convince us that a church must so raise its money, and to such amounts, that it will be able to do its share towards carrying on the great work of evangelizing the world.
In these days of missionary spirit every church is to broaden out its parish lines until they meet only at the antipodes. All the dark places of the earth belong to us to do something for, to do what we can for, and we are not to raise our money nor use it so that this part of the work is neglected. To cheat the heathen out of his portion of the Gospel is an immorality. To help carry the Gospel to the heathen in the uttermost parts of the earth must be accepted by every church as a part of its moral obligation. This may make it necessary to put less expense into church choirs, into adornments and improvements—that the minister and the sexton shall receive smaller salaries. So be it; let the whole field be looked over, and let each receive the share adapted to him. This is good morals in this matter.