All Must Help

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 28, 1902

THE world never commits a greater sin than when it lets any one know that nothing is expected of him. The church never commits a greater sin against one of its members than when it gives him to understand that the church expects nothing of him,—no offering, because he has little money,—no time, because he has little leisure,—no service, because he has little talent. Expect nothing of a man, and you shall not be disappointed. There are thousands of men to-day whom we have pauperized by simply giving them to understand that they did not count!

When we tell a man that he need not contribute to the church, we make a difference between him and others, which cuts him to the heart. The man is humiliated, and if he consents to the humiliation, he is degraded forever. If we hint that he is not worth counting, he will soon cease to be worth counting. The church ought to look to every member for an offering, if that offering be but a potato a year. We have no right to insult men and women by putting them on the dead-head list on our own motion. Even those who are reduced to utter poverty, and whom the church must help, should be made to feel that it is their privilege to contribute an occasional penny to the support of the gospel.—Selected.