Giving Made Easy by JOHN

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 28, 1871

Giving Made Easy.

By JOHN

THIS is an age of improvements. Hard work of all kind is being made easy. But what is harder than for a close man, a covetous man, a stingy man, to be benevolent, and give liberally? What a great benefactor of mankind he would be, who could invent a mode by which these men could give easily! Well, be of good courage, friends; I have found a plan, which, if acted upon, will do the very thing! It is worthy of being patented; but it has made me feel so good, and so benevolent, that I shall freely give it to the world.

This subject had long perplexed my mind! I deeply felt the need of some plan by which I and my brethren could give more easily and liberally. I examined this plan, that one, and the other; but there was some defect in them all. Different benevolent objects came up, for which I greatly desired to do something. My will was good, my heart was in it; but I had not the money to give. I could not do it. I owed debts, and they must be paid. I had wants which must be supplied. When I received a dollar, I had five ways for it. It slipped from my fingers before I knew it. I was not stingy, nor covetous. Certainly not. I despised a stingy soul. I loved to see my brethren give. It did me good. I also would have delighted to give; but then I could not. However, occasionally, I felt a little troubled about the matter, till I hit upon the following plan; and oh! how easy my conscience has been ever since! It has worked like a charm! I have given much more than I expected to, and oh! so easily!

This plan is as follows: I vowed to the Lord that I would carefully and conscientiously give to him one dollar in every ten of all that I received as an income from any source. This dollar I would lay aside just as fast as I received each ten dollars, no matter how hard pressed I was, or how many ways I had for it. Before I was hardly aware of it, I had five dollars laid aside for the Lord, then another five dollars. I did not seem to miss this at all. In this manner I have given much more than ever before, and much more easily. It works so well that I feel anxious that all my brethren should be benefited by it. Try it one year, and report your progress. JOHN.

P. S. I have just taken up an old book lying before me, one said to have been written a great many hundred years ago. Judge of my feelings, to find this same plan of giving there fully described and carefully carried out by holy men, for many generations! But then it has been so long neglected and forgotten that it may be called one of the lost arts. An old man called Abram seems to have known this easy way of giving. Gen. 14 : 17–20. Jacob, his grandson, also practiced it. Gen. 28 : 22. Moses enjoined it upon his people. Lev. 27 : 30. I also found suggested in the same book, the plan of laying apart a portion of all our income as fast as we receive it. 1 Cor. 16 : 2. Even once every week we are to do this, be it much or little that we receive. From the testimony of these ancient men, together with my experience and observation, I am satisfied that this is not only the proper and best, but the only easy, plan by which to give. J.