A Poor Capital | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 15, 1883

A Poor Capital.

ONCE it was remarked to Lord Erskine that a certain man dying had left £200,000, whereupon he replied: "That’s a poor capital to begin the next world with." What a failure was that man’s life. He got no good of his £200,000 in this world, and did not get himself ready for the next. What did he do? What is the grand result of his life, of his toil, of his anxious days and sleepless nights? He raked together £200,000. What did he do with it? Kept it as long as he could. Why did he not keep it forever? He died. What became of it? He left it. To whom? To those that came after, and to the squabbles of courts. If any good to the world ever came out of this £200,000, no thanks are due to him. He kept it as long as he could, and left it only because he could not carry it with him. If he had only "converted it," as the bankers say! and it was convertible into the blessings of the poor; into the sweet consciousness of having done some good while he lived; into the good hope of perpetuating his influence when he was dead and gone. But he did none of these things. He raked it together, kept it, died, left it, and it made his last bed no better.

"The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." But God said unto him, Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." Luke 12 : 16–21.—Selected.