p. 387 | REMEMBER THE POOR

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 1, 1881

REMEMBER THE POOR.

LET us be mindful of the poor. We need not go far to find them; for the children of want are in every place. Speak a kind word, stretch forth the open hand of charity, and you will not lose your reward. Some there are whose poverty comes through misfortune. Business is dull, wages are small, there is sickness in the family, and death takes away the husband and the father, on whom the others leaned for support. Hard is then the struggle to provide bread for the table and fuel for the stove. Harder still, and more bitter far is it for such to beg for help. Those who most deserve help are those who cannot ask for it in loud and importunate tones; but they suffer in silence. Blame not too harshly the sensitiveness of those who will suffer rather than beg. Call it not pride, for it may spring, often does spring, from self-respect. Try to find such out, and help them with a sympathetic, Christ-like spirit.

Some there are whose poverty comes through crime. Vice has brought them to want. Dissipation has thrown them out of a good situation, broken their health, and ruined their characters. Do not, in their wretchedness, oppress them with harsh words. They suffer. Help them first; warn them or reprove them afterward. Show that you have a heart which beats tenderly toward them, and try to win them to a better way by kindness. Oh! think of the power, the redeeming power there is in human sympathy and love. Those who are in trouble can not forget the kindness which is then shown them, but will ever recall it with gratitude. Thus you may have an influence which may lead some to Jesus.

Learn, like good scholars, one of the most useful and joyous of all arts—the art of alms-giving. It is not enough to give to the needy. Give intelligently, so as to not encourage vice or laziness. Give to all, but especially unto those who are of "the household of faith." Give freely and willingly, that you may receive a blessing as well as those on whom your bounty rests. Above all, with the gift, let there be personal sympathy. It is not the value of the gift, but the kindness of the giver, which arouses gratitude. Not money, but love, awakens love. Do good, not that you may be thanked, but because of the promptings of your better nature; and let "the blessing of him that was ready to perish" rest on you. Then, though no trumpet may sound your fame, in the last great day you will hear the Judge say: "I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me."

"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me."—The Methodist.