When They Learn That the Tithe Is the Lord's by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 14, 1915

When They Learn That the Tithe Is the Lord's

By W. A. S.

A POOR Korean woman has found the truth. She had prayed for light, and just then an isolated member of ours came in and told her of the message. Instantly, as the Spirit flashed the truth to her heart, she decided to keep God's Sabbath. Then the truth came to her that not only was the seventh day the Lord's holy time, to be rendered to him, but the tenth of her income was the Lord's tithe, holy unto him. To know was to do.

“This woman has an income of only two dollars a month,” Dr. Russell writes, “but she sent in seventy cents as tithe and sixteen cents as Sabbath school offering last week. She had never heard a study on tithing, but read the third chapter of Malachi only.”

Dr. Law Keem had just landed in Wuchan, to establish our first mission in the great province of Kwang-si. A man came from up the river, calling him to go three days’ journey to a place where some had already begun to keep the Sabbath through reading. A visit was paid them, and a few weeks later a second visit. On this occasion twenty-three were baptized.

“Their faces all shone with new joy,” wrote the doctor; and he added, “The next day, one man brought me $1.80, which was his tithe, saying, ‘After this, every ten loads of rice I have, I will give one to the Lord.’”

So they came, rejoicing in the saving truth, and recognizing God as the giver of all their little substance.

“One girl twelve years old came with her tithe also,” says Dr. Law. “She sells peanuts on the street. ‘From now on,’ she said, ‘every ten cash I earn I am going to take out one for the Lord.’” The “cash” is the little brass coin, worth but a fraction of a cent.

“It did my soul good,” our brother wrote, “to witness such willingness to obey the Lord’s instruction in this matter, though all are poor. They say this province is very poor, but we are beginning to think it rich in honest souls who are longing for the truth. O that we had more workers to search for these jewels!”

Thus in lands where there have been little light and few opportunities, we see the blessed truth causing new believers to give the Lord his own with joy.

W. A. S.