p. 6 | One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollar Fund

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 29, 1907

One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollar Fund

By T. E. Bowen

For Special Work at Home and Abroad

“I’m Done”

OFTEN we hear the above expression as some tired worker falls into a chair at the completion of some task. It sounds good, if the individual has really completed the work. But if a daughter thus remarks in the very midst of some hard job, like the family washing, and the poor, overburdened mother and other members of the family still have to tug away at the work, then the “I’m done” does not sound quite so good.

God is not pleased to have some eased and others burdened, in his work. He teaches us to be noble and unselfish. He marks any departure from these high principles in any of his children.

When the call for the $150,000 was first made, the brethren figured it out that to estimate the membership of the denomination very conservatively, this fund would call for only about $2.50 to be raised by each member, and that if every one would give this small amount, the sum would be quickly made up.

But it was voted by those present at the council not to enter upon the raising of the fund under the quota idea. This sounded too much like a tax—a principle not brought forward in the Bible.

While there can be no burden in reckoning up what a certain field would have to raise according to its membership, and endeavoring to reach that mark as quickly as possible, still, should it happen to be possessed with a well-to-do class of members who would, and should, perhaps, according to the prosperity with which God had blessed them, pay this amount very easily and quickly, for them to sit down with the complacent, “I’m done,” while the rest of the people tug on with the job, does, certainly, not appear to be quite fair, nor the proper thing to do.

And, too, these good people whom God has so richly blessed may not have approached giving the “two mites,” nor “as God hath prospered” them, nor yet even to that amount which the Lord expected them to give.

God says, “For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance [in some other matter] also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: as it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack.”

God has given liberally—“abundantly”—to many of our brethren. He has done this to test them. He asks of them now large gifts for his needy work. He has withheld money from some, and blessed them more abundantly in other ways. For these talents each is held responsible.

Shall we not all stick to the task until the work is done? The work goes harder when some stop. On the other hand, shall those who have been diligent at their task while others have loitered, do the work of the tardy ones? Is this fair and just? As none besides the Lord knows who has and who has not done his duty toward raising the means called for in this large fund, we are left to simply urge all to do their duty before God, and stick at it until the amount is made up. T. E. BOWEN.