DOES IT PAY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 7, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 14.

To BE a solicitor for the Association of Our Blessed Lady of Victory? is a question asked by a little circular sent to us. And the circular gives ten reasons why it does pay. Among these our aid in propagating devotion to “the Blessed Mother of God,” caring for homeless, destitute, orphan, and wayward children, etc. (which any one may do), have the special benefit of 100 masses each at a shrine in Paris, France, and at Rome, Italy; the benefit of participating in 100 masses at each of the following places: Lourdes, France; Loretto, Italy; Knok, Ireland; Paray Le Monial, France; a participation in seven novenas offered by “Father Baker;” a high mass or requiem at death if possible; be remembered every morning of the year, and when dead, three times a week, etc., etc. Surely here are inducements enough offered for one to become a “solicitor” if the things offered are worth anything. If there is any merit in them, why are not fewer of them sufficient? The very fact that they are piled up into masses, 7 novenas, or 2,801 possible masses, 244 benedictions, and 62,000 prayers, in the aggregate 65,052 benefits, would rather indicate that these things were too cheap to be good. Perhaps these things are worth more than we in our ignorance of Protestant belief can realize or appreciate. The lot of a “solicitor” may be a hard one, and it may be worth all these benefits, novenas, masses, etc., but really does it pay?

But it does pay to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Acts 16:31. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” John 3:36. He “hath the witness in himself.” 1 John 5:10. O, yes, in Jesus Christ by faith we have all things, “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints”! Eph. 1:18. Why turn aside from, or pass by, the life-giving, pure snow waters of Lebanon, and seek the broken cisterns of men? See Jer. 2:13; 17:13; 18:14. It pays to do God’s will, to heed God’s Word, to take the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour, into whose very presence the lowest repentant sinner can come with no creature mediator between. It pays to seek and to serve God.