Finishing the Work by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 11, 1907

Finishing the Work

By Editor

We trust that all our people are following from week to week the steady, though slow, growth of the $150,000 fund. The time has come now when every church in the denomination should “put its shoulder to the wheel,” and work for the speedy closing up of that fund. It means simply one good, faithful effort in each church, and the thing is done. We have yet to hear of a single church that has had to take the matter up a second time when it had been thus presented. We have been compassing this mountain long enough. We know the grand total will come—it will come because the work needs it, and the work and the people are one.

Let each church that has not yet done so set a definite date when it will do its part in this blessed undertaking. The Southern Union Conference has appointed May 4 as the date when each church in that union conference will bring in its apportionment of the fund. We have no doubt they will sing their jubilee song over the accomplishment of the task on that date. Why may not all our churches join in that song on that day? We lose very much of the blessing when we procrastinate. Giving late, we give less, even though we give the same amount—paradoxical as it may seem—and decrease the blessing to both giver and receiver. The churches that have made up their quota of the fund can now turn their attention to other things, and there is a satisfaction in knowing that our part is done. Having done it cheerfully and willingly, these scriptures have a new ring to them: “The Lord loveth a cheerful giver;” “He that watereth shall be watered also himself.” Let it not be said of any of us that we “came not up to the help of the Lord, . . . against the mighty.”

Again we say, Let a date be set, and not too far away, and then as far as possible let each member come prepared to do a little more than his share. Carrying that kind of armament, we shall make an onslaught upon the task that will send up the shout of victory around the world, and we shall see an advance in the progress of the cause that will warm the heart of every lover of the third angel’s message.