God's Tithe Is Sacred

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 28, 1914

God's Tithe Is Sacred

BE the tithe large or small, it is sacred, and should be brought to the Lord's treasure house to advance his work in the earth. That it is holy will be impressed still more by reading the following from one of our missionaries:—

“One day a member of the church walked nearly two miles to the mission to bring a threepence tithe, saying: ‘Here, Elder, is a little of the Lord’s own. I have been keeping it until I had a little more to bring with it. But yesterday I had nothing to eat, and this morning I was hungry and feared I should be tempted to use the Lord’s money; so I brought it to you. I want you to take it and put it in the treasury so I shall not be tempted any more.’

“I took it and put it in the till. That, and much more just like it, even the children doing the same thing, was very sacred to us. It caused us to have a deeper sense of the sacredness of God’s work. We always take such money. We do not dare to intimate to those who bring it that it would be right for them even under such trying circumstances to use it themselves, for that would rob them of a proper sense of the sacredness of the tithe, of the importance of God’s work, and of the blessing such sacrifice brings. But, in a way that will not give them the idea that we are remunerating them for their faithfulness in tithing, we always see that they do not go away from our home hungry, even if we give them far more than the value of their tithe, and even if we ourselves have a little less. It is a joy to share the self-denial of such faithful ones.”