HOW WE ADOPTED THE TITHE.
When Dennis mentioned the matter for the first time, I was almost indignant. We were sitting at the fireside one evening—he had been reading the paper, and I was almost dozing over a dull book—when he looked up quite suddenly, and said, “I have been thinking, Clara, that you and I should begin giving systematically.” “Giving systematically to what?” I asked in genuine surprise, and endeavored to look wide awake and interested. “Why, to the church and missions, and so on,” explained Dennis. “Give what?” I asked again, setting my lips a trifle firmer, and making it just as hard for poor Dennis as I could. “Money, of course,” he answered. “You know what I mean, dear. Suppose we keep a tithe box. At present we really give nothing worth speaking of.” “Whatever are you thinking of, Dennis,” said I, “to talk so soberly of giving, when you know we have not nearly enough to live on as it is? It is more of a problem every day, with our income, to make ends meet.” I looked meaningly around the plain little room, with its modest, lonely-looking furniture, and reminded Dennis of the rent which was overdue, and the many things we both needed. I even quoted scripture to the effect that if any provide not for his own he is worse than an infidel; and, being fairly started, soon talked both him and myself into a very dissatisfied frame of mind. It all ended in Dennis saying, “O well, no doubt, as you say, what is impossible is impossible, and that ends it. But I do wish we were able to give something.” A serious illness came to me, and, as I needed constant care, Dennis, who was very busy in the office, proposed that we send for a young girl in whom we had become interested as a child, in the orphan’s home. I knew she had experience in attending the sick, and rather unwillingly consented. Maggie was a capable, well-trained girl, and had a peculiarly gentle and pleasing voice. I loved to hear it so well that during my convalescence I kept her talking on one pretext or other most of the time. In this spirit I asked her rather languidly one day what she kept in a little pasteboard box I had several times noticed in her hands. “This is my tithe box,” said Maggie, turning her honest blue eyes full on me. “I was just counting the money over to see how much I have for the missions next Sabbath.” “Why, child,” said I, “come here, and sit by me; I want to talk to you. Do you mean to tell me that you give a tenth to the Lord?” The girl was rather surprised at my vehemence, but she answered simply: “Why, yes, ma’am. I am very sorry it is so little I can give, having only my earnings. Sometimes I think it would be nearer right if I, whose whole is such a trifle, should give one-fifth. There is so much need of money, you know. It is different with rich people; one-tenth of their money is a great deal, and so much good can be accomplished with it.” I winced under Maggie’s ingenuous argument—such a decided inversion of mine—but she, sweet child, all unconscious of my thoughts, went on to tell me of the good matron at the home; who had taught her, as a little child, that she had a Father in heaven ready to be more to her than the father or mother she had lost. “She told me,” said Maggie, “that when Jesus left the earth, after his resurrection, he put the missionary work he had been doing for three years—and for that matter, all his life, the matron said—in our hands to do for him; and he said plainly that every one of us who love him will show it by what we do of the work he loved. If we can not preach or teach, or give up all our time to him here or over the seas, we can at least give a part of our money to him. She liked to give a tenth, because that was God’s own plan for the people he loved, and so must be the division of one’s money that pleases him best. ‘It is all right,’ the dear matron said one day, ‘to give a tenth of our all; and after that, if we spare more, we can call it a gift.’ She gave us a tithe box, and the very first money I earned, all my own, I put a tenth in it.” “So your matron thought that everyone should give a tenth to the Lord, Maggie?” “No, ma’am,” was the quiet answer. “She did not say we ought to; she did not think of it in that way. But she said that, like the other plans the good Lord has made for our every day living, it is really all to make us good and happy. We are so glad when once we begin to give in that way, and the nine-tenths which we keep are blessed of him with the one he accepts; so it is lifted above being ordinary money, and does us far more good.” My mind was busy with those sweet words long after Maggie had left me, and the question came, “If she can give out of her pitiful poverty, what is my excuse?” Yes, I saw clearly now. I had been in the wrong, and a stumbling-block to my husband. So, in the evening, as we sat cosily by the fire again, both happy in my returning strength, I said to Dennis: “I have learned a lesson which makes my illness a blessing, dear. Shall I tell you of it?” And then I told him of Maggie’s ministering to my soul as well as to my body, and showed him a little box on which was written, “Tithes.” Dennis did not speak at first, but a glad look shone in his eyes, and he clasped my hand very tenderly. “The Lord’s hand is in this, Clara,” he said at last. “We will pledge a tithe of all God ever gives us, over this little box, won’t we?” It would be but a half truth to say that we never miss that money. It has brought us a blessing. Tho we are not rich, and probably never will be, we are content, which is far better, and fret about matters no more. “O, Dennis,” I said the other day, “how well worth heeding that suggestion of yours has proved?”