A USELESS MEMBER | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 8, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 23.

A USELESS MEMBER.

“Yes,” said Aunt Sarah, surveying her bandaged wrist, “the doctor says it’s a bad sprain; and the minister says I know now how the church feels, in not having the use of all its members. The minister didn’t mean that just for a joke, either; he looked at me as if he wanted to see how I’d take it. I had sense enough, too, to feel I deserved to have him say it to me. A word like that comes home pretty straight when one of your own members is useless, and worse.

“I’ve never thought just what being a member of the church meant before, tho’ I’ve been one for thirty-five years. I’ve never felt obliged to do what the church wanted done. I felt it was a favor, my doing it at all, and half the time I let some one else do it instead. When I was through with work at home, and with what things I liked to do outside, then I was willing to do something in the church—if it was the kind of work that suited me. I guess I’ve been about as useless a member to the church as the sprained hand is to me, all stiff and crippled, and refusing to bend more than an inch or two.

“There’s lots of things I need to do, but I can’t use this member to do them—that’s certain. That’s the way the minister has felt about me, I guess. I’ve been a useless member for thirty-five years, that’s the long and short of it; and, if the rest of the members had been like me, the church would have been as paralyzed as old Cousin Josiah Jones, who can’t move hand nor foot. I’m ashamed of myself—I truly am—and things are going to be different from now on,” and Aunt Sarah nodded her head with a firm determination, as she looked at the church spire from her window.—Forward.