Worth Reading by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 7, 1871

Worth Reading.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

I DARE not put the proper heading to this article for fear that the very ones who need it would never read it. Stop, brother, and carefully examine this advice, and may the Spirit of God trouble you and give you no rest till you live it out:—

WHEN TO GIVE.

In this article on “The Christian Use of Money,” in the last Congregational Quarterly, Dr. Post, in answer to the question, When shall I give? says:

Give when you have it; when God gives it to you to give. This power is precious and may be brief, and should not be periled by the hazards of future business success. Certain portions or proportions of your gains belong to God’s charities. Have you a right to risk them in the chances of your business any more than any other deposit? As a trustee, have you a right to use them for your own benefit? Are you not bound to deal with them as with any other fiduciary moneys in your hands, committed for keeping or for definite uses, or collected for remittance?

Give early. The gift bears moral interest. The withholding is a curtailment of good. What is given, works, propagates, multiplies itself in its results immediate, or in establishing agencies of future beneficence, and acquires power for good often in a geometric ratio of time. This the gift loses by withholding, and for this the withholder is liable. The misery he might relieve is all the while passing beyond his reach. What an income is thus forfeited by delay, never to be recovered, yet strictly to be accounted for, which might have gladdened the days and years as they passed, but which, lost, turns for time and eternity to a regret and remorse! This is true if the ability of giving is still continued, and with late or dead hand we are still permitted to bestow what was due years earlier. Of this usufruct you rob yourself; you rob the poor; you rob God. But there is, moreover, grave peril that you will lose the power. You are jeopardizing the capital—another’s capital—all the while, in the risks of business, and also in risks of your own disposition to give.

Give concurrently—pari passu—with your gains, according as God prospers you, and when he prospers you; laying by in store from his gifts, from week to week, or at frequent periods, in this measure. Do this, or you may never give at all. Not only may that which you retain in your business ventures or incidents be lost, you are also likely to lose the will to give. If you retain what is due to benevolent uses, you will be likely to build on it in business enterprises, or in your scale of expenditure for living, as though it were your own. It will enlarge your wants. They will grow on the mind like the greed of the horse-leech. Moreover, this giving systematically and synchronously with your gains, is your only guard against covetousness, that meanest of mean passions, a miserable miserliness, that rusts through the entire moral nature; a fatuity, a snake-charm, a diabolic possession of the soul. Nothing can protect from this curse of perpetual gaining, or strife for perpetual gain, but a similar perpetual giving. The hand that is constantly clutching, must be constantly opening, or its clutch will grow to spasm or paralysis. The constant ministration to habits of acquisitiveness must be counteracted by constant culture of habits of generous and charitable bestowing, or the soul will shrivel in both capacity of excellence and enjoyment. The Midas finds all changed to gold, and he is incrusted, starved, and stifled in his riches. What is rightly given changes the nature of the residue and consecrates it to a power of enjoyment unknown before, enjoyment only possible for a genial, benevolent, man-loving, and God-loving soul.

By giving frequently and as God hath prospered you, you will in the end give much more and with less disturbance to any other interest. On the margin of each year’s budget of expenditures are a multitude of optional or dispensable items, which perpetually solicit all moneys not immediately required in livelihood or business. Secure your charities against embezzlement by these, through prompt giving, and you will be astonished at the amount secured from mere worthless or frivolous or luxurious expenditures. Give with a system of times as well as amounts. Thus you will not only increase amounts, but values; meeting the necessities of plan and system which must attach to all extensive and permanent charities. Give on the Sabbath, in the sanctuary, as a fitting part of worship in the Lord’s house; as a practical test of sincerity and truth, and a practical culture and expression of Christian consecration and love. Give while you live, that you may be certain of giving, and not be baffled and thwarted by executors, administrators, courts, or heirs. Be your own executor; so shall your benefactions be more fully subjected to your intelligence, and your purposes shall become more surely effective, and they shall bring you pleasure in the vision of their results.

But if by anything you are precluded from previous giving, give by will. Let charities blossom and fructify from your grave. Work on through your property in after times. Convert it into voices and influences for good through the ages.

Reader, are you doing your duty in this matter? If not, Satan is close on your track.

D. M. CANRIGHT.