p. 805 | ISAIAH 58° by W. S. Chapman

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 18, 1900

By W. S. Chapman

W. S. CHAPMAN

(Cleveland, Ohio)

Twenty-nine years ago the Lord repeated Isa. 58: 5-11, and said: “This is the special work now before us.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. II., page 34.

The language now is as follows: “We are years behind in our work.” “If we do not awake more generally and fully, then those who know not the truth for this time will advance before us, and block up our way.” “We have no time to lose. The end is near.” “Everything will be placed to obstruct our way, so that we shall not be able to do that which is possible to be done now.”

Twenty-nine years ago there was no system of co-operation among organized charities, and for six years after that, the field was free and waiting for private effort. In 1874 the first conference of organized charities convened in New York City, where only four States of the Union were represented. Now a system of co-operative charities is to be found in our own country, from Maine to California, and in nearly every other government, having an interconnection, which is so perfect in its workings as almost entirely to control public charity, and all the streams whereby supplies and money can be obtained for relief of distress.

The field has not only been entered, but so effectually possessed, by those who know not the truth, that we shall now never be able to accomplish more than a tittle of what the Lord desired we should do. We can not retrieve nor atone for the past, but the present is still left to us. It seems as if our first step should be to ascertain by a study of Isaiah 58 the Lord’s requirements.

Four lines of work are presented in this chapter: (1) Feeding the hungry; (2) caring for the outcasts; (3) clothing the destitute; (4) caring for our own poor and distressed.

Charity is a gift from God: it is love (1 John 4: 7), and is an exemplification and application of the second great commandment. 1 John 5: 3; Rom. 13: 10. The heathen know nothing of charity; for, as the basis of charity is love, and love is of God, the knowledge of God is a necessity before charity can possess the human heart.

“Bible charity is not sentimentalism, but love in active service.”—“Appeal to Ministers and Conference Officers,” page 31. The Lord intended that His people should be exponents of this fundamental gospel truth; but instead of occupying the leadership, they are still children in knowledge. “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles [commandments] of God.” Heb. 5: 12.

Charity, like everything else connected with the government of God, is a science, and must be studied. The motive power in true charity is the love of God. Intelligent charity, therefore, will always aim at a permanent benefit.

Any benefit that accrues from intelligent charity will be the result of the action of the love of God; and this action being a spiritual influence upon the mind, the outcome of intelligent charity will always be a moral and spiritual reformation. Therefore any charity, the aim and outcome of which is less than this, is not “Christlike” or “Christian charity.”

Then again, intelligent charity must treat men and women as individuals, and not as classes, because the aim of true charity (the love of God) is salvation from sin, and salvation is an individual matter. State charity fails of accomplishing its aim and object—spiritual and moral reformation—because the State can not be actuated by the love of God, nor deal with unfortunates on any other than a business basis, and by police regulations.

True charity always reacts, and therefore develops character in both giver and receiver. Prov. 11: 25. So it is written: “The very simplest modes of work should be devised and set in operation among the churches. If members will co-operate with such a plan, and perseveringly carry it out, they will reap a rich reward; their experience will grow brighter, their ability will increase, and souls will be saved through their efforts.”—Review and Herald, Feb. 28, 1893.

Such charity must, of necessity, labor through a combination, or the combining, of natural, hygienic, and spiritual laws. Why?

First: every one, no matter apparently how hopelessly degraded, has rights, and true charity will always not only respect such rights, but labor to restore them to the individual. Chief among the rights to be regained are a proper life, purity, a hope in the gospel.

Second: a home is the great safeguard of social existence. Intelligent charity will seek, first of all, to create a healthful home, and to educate against the abuse of natural and hygienic law, as disease is directly traceable to carelessness and shiftlessness, which, with the poor, generally lead to drink, pauperism, and crime.

Intelligent charity, then, is that which begins the work in the homes of the poor, and this, of course, means visiting the homes, not in spasmodic or intermittent efforts, but a life-work of systematic visiting, an ingratiating one’s self into the hearts of the people, and by precept and example educating to higher and still higher physical, moral, and spiritual levels.

A charity that is unsystematized, or that considers only the day and the day’s needs; that aims at relieving simply the pressing necessities, and nothing more; that relieves the present need, only to leave the individual to beg again,—such charity may emulate the pity of the savage, or the liberality of the atheist, but does not represent the love of God—is not Christianity.

“More than he asked he gave, and deemed it mean Only to help the poor to beg again!”

A charity that simply relieves the physical necessities, and does not educate, fails to meet the mind of God, as it degrades the recipient by making dependency, pauperism, a desirable condition, the pauper a pensioner.

The foundation, then, of true charity, is the restoration of lost rights, beginning with that of the home influence. To engage in such charity means consecration and devotion, which will broaden our conceptions of duty, create brotherly love, making us tender, pitiful, kind, able and willing to minister to one another’s necessities.