Investments in Men

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 18, 1873

Investments in Men.

[An extract from the Report read before the Iowa Baptist Union for Ministerial Education, at its last Anniversary, by the Secretary, Dexter P. Smith, D. D.]

INVESTMENTS IN MEN THE MOST REMUNERATIVE.

God invests largely in men; men who, by special endowments, the development of faith, mental and moral culture, are an efficient agency in consummating his purposes of mercy. He invested in Noah, Abraham, Moses and the prophets.

When Christ came to set up his kingdom, he, too, invested; not in the accumulated capital of ages, nor in scepters and thrones, but in men. Men from the common people, who, after a liberal training under his own masterhand, and a special endowment, not of gold and silver, but of power from on high, were triumphantly marshaled against the superstition of the age, and all the opposing powers of darkness.

God invested in the martyrs, the reformers, Judson, Carey and Comstock. He is investing in men to-day. By harvests deepening, and widening, and waving in the distance, he is urging upon the churches the prayer, that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers. No amount of funded capital would be an equivalent for one such man as Adoniram Judson, or William Carey. Hundreds of millions would be less than the dust of the balance. Said an earnest missionary, imploring for re-enforcements “to send us Bibles without men, would be like throwing sickles into a field of grain, expecting to see it reaped without hands.” It is conceded that the great desideratum of the hour is the indefinite multiplication of this specific agency. The church, then, which sends forth her representative men, or the pastor, who, under God, duplicates himself, bequeaths to the world a legacy more precious than of gold and silver.

HOW INVEST IN MEN?

By the prayer of faith draw on the Lord of the harvest. The draft is legitimate, and will be duly honored. God will supply the church that asks, with the raw material, in the ratio of her readiness to utilize and appropriate it. Said Dr. Stone, “Churches that are not using half the gifts they have, need not expect God to add more and higher. But whenever love for Christ and the souls of men shall seek vent in aggressive labor, ministers will be sent forth to meet any emergency that may arise,” until all the ends of the earth shall see his salvation. The churches of Homer, Truxton and Cazenovia, New York, during a history of thirty years sent out over eighty ministers. Spurgeon has been investing in men during his whole natural life, and has set in motion a power that will increase in a compound ratio for all time.

HOW MAKE MOST OF THE INVESTMENT.

In answer to the prayer of faith, having obtained the men, it is a legitimate inquiry, how to make the most of them? Not always by thrusting them at once with dull scythes into the ripened harvest. The moments spent by the laborer, sharpening his instrument, so far from being lost, may be the most telling hour of the day. True, no sheaf may be garnered during that grinding process; nevertheless, the augmented efficiency of every succeeding hour demonstrates its wisdom. Skilled labor far exceeds unskilled in its valuation. Science and discipline enhance manifold its efficiency. A single man of culture often possesses immense value to his country. Wellington is said to have been worth thirty thousand ordinary men in the hour of conflict; and who will undertake to estimate the value to the world of a man like the late Professor Morse? You duplicate such men at the cost of long years of discipline and development.

So, is it not obviously in keeping with the divine will that young brethren called to preach “tarry,” if not for miraculous endowment, nevertheless for some modern Priscilla and Aquila to “expound to them the way of God more perfectly?” Scores of young men possessing talent, and giving evidence of a divine call to the ministry, are nevertheless disqualified for efficiency by an utter lack of discipline and culture. These, by timely encouragement on the part of the church, might in due time rank among our most earnest, useful ministers. The amount accomplished will not be estimated by the length of time spent in the field, but by the ratio of efficiency. Then duplicate not only your captains, but your generals—your Wellingtons, your Pauls, your Careys, your Judsons.

A WORD TO YOUNG MEN.

No young man “bought with a price” is at liberty to choose his own occupation, or yield his talents to illegitimate claims, ignoring the divine will. The loafer who does not belong to the army may sleep upon his post, smoke his cigar and ignore the roll-call; but belonging to the command, you hang fire at your peril.