Why Not? by I. H. Evans

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 20, 1902

Why Not?

By I. H. Evans

WHEN the call came one year ago for a large donation to relieve the Christiania Publishing House, who expected that our people would so nobly respond? A donation of twenty-two thousand dollars was the emphatic answer that every obligation contracted by this denomination is payable in gold. We fancy that never in the history of missions nor in any commercial enterprise was there a more hearty response to an appeal for help under similar conditions.

Our Christiania creditors have increased faith in our denominational integrity, and unbounded confidence that what we pledge will be done. Their attorney said that it was an unheard-of thing for a denomination to do what we have undertaken; namely, to pay a sixty-five-thousand-dollar debt which we never contracted, and which the law could not collect.

Only three more payments remain, and all is over. Ten thousand dollars more than last year’s donation would clear the ledger. If last year we gave twenty-two thousand dollars, is it not an easy task to raise thirty-two thousand dollars this season?

Prosperity never smiled over this fair land as now. From shore to shore plenty reigns supreme. Every wheel of commerce is running to its limit, and labor commands a ready market. These are the harvest days for paying debts. He who does not save now and reduce his obligations is losing his opportunity. So with our denomination. Let every energy of our combined forces bend unitedly in wiping out our debts.

Is it an impossible thing for us to raise thirty-two thousand dollars for our July donation? That only means about fifty cents per capita. But few are so poor that they cannot give that, while many can give much more. Why take up two or three more donations when one can meet it all?

To give to God does not impoverish. In giving to him we give to the One who controls the universe. The sunshine, the rain, the life of all things are in his keeping. Truly we can say: “Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. O Lord our God, all this store . . . cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own. I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness.”

Shall not the Israel of God to-day bring a liberal offering on this coming occasion? Why not all of us take hold as one man, and let the donation on Sabbath, July 5, be the last we have to make for Christiania? To this end let us all labor and pray. I. H. EVANS.