The N. Y. Treasury Empty by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 1, 1877

The N. Y. Treasury Empty.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Bro. Charles Green, our State treasurer, lives here at Adams Center. He says there is only ten dollars in the treasury, and nothing coming in, though nearly half a year of S. B. is now due. I am told by leading officers in the Conference that many of the churches in this State have fallen into the wrong, unscriptural habit of letting their pledges run on through the entire year, and then paying them at the last minute at the camp-meeting. This is entirely wrong, brethren. That is not Systematic Benevolence at all. Such a course throws everything into confusion.

Our S. B. treasurers have no reports to make. The S. B. treasurer here at Adams Center told me that he had not one dollar to report at the end of the last quarter, and hence only had a blank report to send. He ought to have sent that, though he did not. This leaves our treasury embarrassed during the most of the year. The Lord cannot bless such a way of doing business.

Our brethren promise solemnly to lay apart one-tenth, and to do this regularly each week, and to pay this into the treasury at least as often as once in every three months. This is what should be done. Our brethren should not practice using all their means as fast as received simply for themselves, for their food, their clothing, their furniture, and their debts, and their wants. In this they are acting in a very selfish manner. They are serving themselves first. Finally, at the end of the year, when their pledges have run up till they seem terrible and really burdensome to them, they feel covetous and fretful over the matter, and feel as though they were not able to meet their pledge.

They lose in this manner nine-tenths of the real enjoyment they would have in giving, were they to do it systematically. The Bible requires us to give the first-fruits, not the last end of everything. Give a little at a time, as fast as it comes in, and you will have a continual feast, a continual blessing. We urge our brethren in New York immediately to pay up what S. B. is due. It is needed to-day, and the treasury is empty. D. M. Canright.