Looking Back by Joseph Clarke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 20, 1875

Looking Back.

By Joseph Clarke

SOMETIMES it happens that persons who have given quite liberally at the calls of charity and benevolence, at some turn in the times, when money is scarce, are confronted by Satan thus: You see how it is; your money is gone little by little; there is no end to this continued call for money; there is your Systematic Benevolence money, your tract money, your donation to the Bible cause, your widow and orphan money, your subscription to the meeting-house, the camp-meeting expenses, and other calls too provokingly numerous to mention. Just think what all these items amount to in one year, in ten years; and then the interest too, it is all astounding to think of. Now look at it; if you had kept clear, and judiciously laid out this charity fund in land and stock, and improvements, see how you would have thriven. No wonder your neighbors get ahead of you. Why, there's your old friend W——, who rolls in splendor and wealth, while you are all the time managing to get along. Consider how much time you spend attending meetings; and then there are your traveling expenses, you did not think of that. If the Lord was what you think he is, he would not allow you to be so scrimped and mortified, and to see all your old friends driving past you in their fine rigs, and hardly stopping to say good morning. This kind of thing does not pay; you will have to temper down your zeal a little or die in the poor-house.

Then there are your rich brethren who have vastly more property than you have who do not pretend to give even as much as you do. Do you not see that even your own brethren are making money over your foolish, doting liberality? One says it is done to get a name; another says it is because you have no more sense, and so on. I tell you you must be careful, you would be thought as much again of if you had money to lend instead of borrowing; see how things work all the time against you.

Thus Satan plies many a poor soul until he goes back to the realms of darkness and loses sight of the eternal city and its infinite glory. Thus it happens that many a purse-string is tightened, and many a heart is hardened beyond recovery, and many a goodly treasure in Heaven is forfeited. Thus it is that many a suffering one is unrelieved and unblessed with those gifts which are molding and rusting in the rich man's granary and safe.

Thus it is that many will find at the last that they are poor and miserable, blind and naked, when they supposed themselves to be wealthy and refined; and the rust of their treasures will be a witness against them. In the day of the Lord, when he shall come again to earth, all those arguments now so weighty in favor of looking back to earth's treasures and vanities will be lighter than thin air. Then, too, all those arguments in favor of Christian liberality will be weighty and strong.

Repent not of having done well; but enlarge thine heart, and look into the future, into the far-off land, where all thine alms are laid up for thee. All is safe there, unless thou dost retract and recall those gifts.

JOSEPH CLARKE.