Deficit and Debt

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Nov 10, 1904

In an address before the Baptist Missionary Society Dr. A. T. Pierson drew the following distinction between a deficit and a debt:—

I do not myself believe in the “healthiness of a debt,” at any rate, I have preserved my own health best without any. But while I deprecate debt, I can understand that where there is a growing work for God, there may often be a temporary deficit. When I was a boy, I grew so fast that it was all my mother could do to keep me in clothes. But that was the fault not of weakness, but of vigor. It was the penalty of growth and health. Let us not, then, be surprised or find fault if there is a temporary deficiency. Only let the temporary deficiency not become an embarrassing debt, but at once let it be met, and give the growing work a new suit.

Every man who can recall his boyhood days can doubtless testify to the embarrassment which he often experienced in wearing a suit which he had outgrown. Is it not better to avoid even a deficit, and to keep the suit large enough for the growing work?