BAGS WITH HOLES | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 17, 1879

BAGS WITH HOLES.

Some people are afraid to invest their means in the enterprises connected with the work of the Lord in the earth, as they seem to think there is a safer place of deposit. But they forget the experience of all the past and much of the present, and the probabilities of the future, that earthly bags are all exceedingly liable to be filled with holes, and some, perhaps, to contain the most which are supposed to be even water-tight.

The Bank of Glasgow was supposed to be a very safe bag in which to preserve this world's treasures, so also were supposed to be Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati, and the Savings Banks of Chicago; but through the holes in these three bags alone, some twenty-five millions of dollars have slipped forever from the possession of the poor people who had confidence in them.

Says David Swing, in the Alliance of March 15, 1879: “Within the last twelve months, it is safe to say that the simplicity of the poor people that have lived among the Calvinists at Glasgow, and among the Catholics of Cincinnati, and among the enlightened Pagans of Chicago, has cost them at least twenty-five millions of dollars ($25,000,000). This a large sum to have been taken from fathers and mothers and children who needed every cent of it along with lawful interest.”

We do not say that to any of these people the opening remark of this article would apply; but there are multitudes to whom it is applicable, and here is an instructive picture for them to contemplate. There is a way in which money can be invested so that there will be no defalcation, no embezzlement, no breaking of banks, no shrinkage of value, and no loss of interest; and that is to spend it in the support of those agencies through which divine light and truth are being disseminated in the earth, and people are being turned into ways of morality and religion. To most people, such an investment looks the least likely of any to pay, but it will be found at last to pay the best.