THE DEACON'S TENTH

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 19, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 37.

THE DEACON'S TENTH.

You see the elder had preached a most powerful sermon on Christian givin', in which he took what I call purty strong ground. Among other things, he said we'd ought to do as much for our religion as the old Jews did for theirs; an' while it was all right to lay up for a rainy day, an' get ahead if we honestly could, we should set apart at least one-tenth of our income as the Lord's money.

“Now, I think the elder went a leetle too far,” says I to my wife, Huldy, as we was drivin' home from meetin'. “Givin' is well enough, but I get a' most tired hearin' these ministers forever a-dingin' about it.”

“Wall, Lyman,” says Huldy, “why don't you try givin' a tenth?—try it for a year anyhow. Then I am sure,” with that queer little smile o' hern that she sometimes has, “it'll be real savin' to ye to go in systematically a-givin' yer tenth.”

Now I hadn't any idee of doin' it an' keepin' a reckonin' of what I contribute—in fact, I thought that verse about lettin' yer right hand know what yer left was a-doin' was rather agin' it, but somehow Huldy has a cool way o' takin' things for granted, an', though the mildest of all women, she generally manages to carry her p'int.

Next mornin' I see her makin' a book out o' some sheets o' paper, an' rulin' 'em off an' stitchin' onto 'em a pasteboard kiver, an' on the outside she writ in big letters, that was as plain to read as printin', “The Lord's Money.” This she handed to me an' said nothin'.

That very week I got pay for my wheat; it was an uncommon good crop; it come to six hundred dollars. I was sittin' by the fire a-countin' it up with some satisfaction, when Huldy just stuck under my nose that book, “The Lord's Money.”

“What's that for, Huldy?” says I.

“Why, for the tenth,” says she.

“Bless my soul!” says I, a-wrigglin' an' twistin', that would be sixty dollars; I can't stan' that.

She didn't say anythin', but set a-watchin' me, an' I knew it wasn't no use a-dodgin' her, so I took six ten-dollar bills, all crisp an' new, and laid 'em in a pile.

“Yis, yis,” says I, a-tryin' to screw my face into a smile, an' to act as if I'd been calkerlatin' all the way through to give 'em.

Ye see there was a awful sight o' old Adam in me. I jest set there a-begredgin' that money. I most wished the wheat hadn't come to so much. Then I happened to remember what the elder had said in his sermon—that it would be a mighty hard wrench on us at first to give a tenth—that when the fingers had got crooked up a-graspin' this world's goods, it was hard to get 'em straightened out, but that when we'd become used to this way o' givin', we'd enjoy it an' be blessed in it as much as in prayin' an' readin' the Scriptures. A-thinkin' on that sermon, I made up my mind to double my subscription for the elder's support, an' that would just take the $60.

As I harvested my crops, an' sold 'em, I was astonished to see how the pile grew, an' I had to think it over middlin' sharp to know where to invest it so 'twould do most good, an' I was gettin' over the wrench a little until my interest money come due. The year before old Uncle Nat died, an' most unexpectedly had left me $5,000. If the legacy had dropped down from the skies I couldn't have been more surprised. Now I had three hundred a-comin' in from it, an' it most killed me to take thirty on't an' put it aside for the Lord. I couldn't help whinin'.

“Now, Huldy,” says I, “don't ye believe the old Jews deducted their taxes afore they laid by their tenth?”

“I dunno,” says she; “we might read up Leviticus, an' Numbers, an' Deuteronomy an' see.”

“Bless my soul, Huldy,” says I, “I'd rather pay the whole $30 than wade through all them books; an' then,” says I, a-thinkin' hard, “accordin' to what these agents that come around beggin' say, I suppose it would be a good pecooniary speckerlation to give to the Lord. They tell about throwin' out crackers an' comin' back loaves, an' show how them is blessed in their basket an' in their stores that bestow their goods on the poor. Anyhow, I've made up my mind to try it.”

“Now, Lyman Tubbs, don't ye go into this tenth business with no such worldly motives. If ye do, ye'll be worse than Ananias and Sapphira, who was struck dead at once. Not but that the Lord has said, ‘I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee,’ but if yer undertake to drive a sharp bargain with him, ye'll find out that he'll get ahead of yer every time. No, he's given us all we have, an' I'm thinkin' he'll ask some mighty close questions about the way we've used it.”

Huldy didn't very often preach, but when she did, her sermons were what I call p'inted.

Time passed on, an' I got used to givin' my tenth. I didn't squirm over givin' it as I did at first; in fact, I got kinder raised, an' to feelin' liberal. I didn't sell so much as a turkey without puttin' aside tithes of it.

It happened in the summer that my wife's cousin Silas and his family came to see us, an' I was a-braggin' about givin' my tenth, an' I supposed he'd never heard o' sech a thing, but Silas says, says he: “I've done it ever since I was converted. I earn $2.00 a day, an' every Saturday night I jest set apart $1.20, an' I pray over it; it's the Lord's money.”

“Don't ye take yer livin' out o' it first?”

“Yer what?” says Silas, amazed. “It's just so much I earn, an' the ability to earn it comes from the Lord, an' I joyfully give back to him the little part.”

“But,” says I, “ain't that kinder risky? Ye might be took sick, or yer work give out; I should be a little fearsome.”

“These are the promises,” says Silas, “‘My God shall supply all your needs,’ an', ‘Lo, I am with you;’ they are all yea an' amen.”

Well, if I didn't feel small after that! I had simply given a tenth of all I'd sold, an' grumbled over it at that, an' there were all those broad acres that had fed us, an' those big trees in the woods that had kept us warm—blessin's that I hadn't counted, an' here was Silas with nothin' but his hands, an' yet so willin' hearted an' doin' so much. When I carried him an' his folks back to the city, I jest filled my wagon body full o' things, an' felt as if I was givin' directly to the Lord.

One day the elder an' his family was over to our house, an' we was a-talkin'. His son Fred was a-playin' with my Thomas—they was awful good friends—an' says the elder, “If I had as much money as you have, Deacon Tubbs, I'd send Thomas to school, an' ask the Lord to make a minister out o' him.”

“Well,” thought I, “that's the last thing I want him to be.” You see I had other plans for my boy, but I said nothin'.

My next neighbor, old Mr. Hodges, had a son who went to the city, an' studied law, an' got to be a judge, an' comes home in his big carriage once in a while to visit the old folks, his wife an' children dressed to fits, an' seein' them I had a natural hankerin' for Thomas to turn out like that. I was sayin' this to Huldy when the elder's folk was gone.

“Now, Lyman Tubbs,” says she, a-lookin' at me with them great, earnest eyes o' hers, “would you really like to have our Thomas jest like old Mr. Hodges' son?—a-breakin' the Sabbath, he and his boys, a-shootin' ducks, an' a-drinkin' an' playin' cards? Be you a deacon and a member of the church, an' not feel as if it was bigger business to persuade men to forsake their sins and to love the Lord Jesus Christ?”

Ever since Silas was here my mind has been dreadfully took up with somethin' he was tellin' me. He said some good, Christian men had hired rooms in the worst part o' the city, an' made them bright an' attractive, an' was a-singin' hymns an' preachin' to the folks, all without money an' without price, and some sech work as that is what I'd been wishin' my boy could do, an' jest then Thomas came in an' stood beside his mother. He had the same hair as hers, an' the same brown eyes, an' somethin' told me that if he took to preachin' he'd be one o' the convincin' sort, for I must say that nobody's words ever took hold of an old sinner like me as Huldy's does.

Well, my tenth money grew; half the time I didn't know what to do with it. I was over to the elder's one day an' he was a-tellin' of a school near by which he thought would be a good place to send our Thomas—he had noticed how crazy the boy was for books and learnin', an' the minister said he had a cousin a-livin' just out of the village, that would take good care of Thomas, an' board him, an' he would be under good Christian influences.

“What do you say, Huldy?” says I, as soon as I got home.

“I would like him to go,” says she, “an' for the elder's boy to go with him.”

Sure enough he should, an' that would be a use for the rest of my tenth, an' Thomas an' Fred was awful good friends; they was like David and Jonathan. An' what do you think? there was a revival that jest like a big wave struck that school, an', in fact, the whole community, an' both the boys and girls was converted, and you can't think how I felt, so glad about it, an' kinder streaked too, for I knew it warn't none o' my doin', I'd been such a poor, good-for-nothin' Christian all my life, it was enough to set my Thomas agin' the Lord.

We got the good news on Saturday mornin', an' in the afternoon was the covenant meetin'. It was just about a year from the time that Huldy handed me “The Lord's Money” book; I remember how I got up in the meetin' then, an' talked, not because I'd anythin' to say, but, bein' deacon, I felt as if I ought to, an' told the brethren I hadn't made

no progress, an' all that—jest what I commonly said. How could I talk that way now, when I'd a year o' sech uncommon blessin', an' with Huldy beside me a-cryin' for joy because our Thomas had been converted? No, I couldn't keep from breakin' down, an' thanking the Lord for his goodness to me and mine, an' I knew that givin' my tenth, though it had come so begredgin'ly, had been a help to me. I warn't such a small, waspish critter as I was afore.

The next year I was man enough to divide my tenth with Huldy, an' sech good times as we had investing it. Now, Huldy was great on what we call the “inasmuch charities.”—“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one o' the least o' these,” etc. She was always a-findin' some bedrid old woman to help, or crippled child, or some other case o' need, while I couldn't hardly sleep o' nights a-thinkin' of the great west, with the foreigners a-comin' into it, an' of the poor freedmen of the south, or of the great heathen world that so needs the Gospel. We'd spend hours an' hours a-talkin' it over, an' as we did so, we'd get nearer to each other an' I trust nearer to the Lord.

It's now been a good many years that we've been a-tryin' this tenth business, an' I wouldn't go back to the old helter-skelter way o' givin' fer anythin'.

As I'm closin', I've got this much to tell you: If you want to be a happy Christian, you must let your prayin' an' praisin' an' givin' go together, an' I will say that Huldy, never did a better thing for me than when she gave me “The Lord's Money” book.—The Examiner.