p. 15 | The Stingy Christian

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Sep 15, 1904

The Stingy Christian

A STINGY Christian was listening to a charity sermon. He was nearly deaf, and was accustomed to sit facing the congregation, right under the pulpit, with his ear-trumpet directed upward, toward the preacher. The sermon moved him considerably. At one time he said to himself, “I’ll give ten dollars;” again he said, “I’ll give fifteen.” At the close of the appeal he was very much moved, and thought he would give fifty dollars. Now the boxes were passed. As they moved along, his charity began to ooze out. He came down from fifty to twenty, to ten, to five, to zero. He concluded that he would not give anything. “Yet,” said he, “this won’t do—I am in a bad fix. This covetousness will be my ruin.” The boxes were getting nearer. The crisis was upon him. What should he do? The box was now under his chin—all the congregation were looking. He had been holding his pocketbook in his hand during this soliloquy, which was half audible, though in his deafness he did not know that he was heard. In the agony of the final moment he took his pocketbook and laid it in the box, saying to himself, as he did it: “Now, squirm, old natur’!” “Here is the key to the problem of covetousness,” says an exchange. “Old natur’” must go under. A few experiments of putting in the whole pocketbook may cure.—Selected.