A FIFTY-CENT RELIGION

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 28, 1877

A FIFTY-CENT RELIGION.

In the world’s markets a thing is said to be worth the money it will bring. In the economy of divine grace the gospel is without price, because it is beyond all price. But the value which men place upon the free gifts of God is in some measure indicated by the thank-offerings which they return, and by the sacrifices they make to extend to others the benefit which they themselves have received. When there are no obligations upon men save those of gratitude, and they are entirely at liberty to determine for themselves the extent of those

obligations and their duty in discharging them, then whatever there is of hidden meanness and covetousness within a person is liable to manifest itself.

All have heard of the man who thanked God for the “free salvation” he had enjoyed for ten or twenty years, and which had thus far cost him only a shilling. There are many people who, while they could not quite equal him in this boasting, yet show a very limited appreciation of their individual responsibility to God in view of the blessings which he has conferred upon them; and there are many who are very willing that others should do the duties that properly belong to them, and who seem to evince very little that looks like honor or conscience in the way they discharge these personal obligations.

“Can you say in conscience that you have done all you can to raise this money?” said a Christian man to a somewhat well-to-do beggar who once came to him for assistance in their church enterprise.

“Why, no, if you put it on the ground of conscience, I cannot say that we have done all that we could.”

And yet this man was ready to be sent, and his brethren were ready to send him, to ask others to do what, if they would really undertake it, they were able to do themselves. Instances are too numerous where persons will seek help of others to do what they themselves are abundantly able to do. And sometimes wealthy and prosperous men will accept for religious purposes, charities which have been procured by the toil of the weary hands of women, and the mites of widows who have cast their all into the treasury of the Lord. The prevalent “societyism” of the day may in some cases foster this feeling. The society begs money, and the society distributes tracts; and so sometimes a man accepts the benefactions of a society, who would not at all like to be called a beggar, but who is in fact receiving as a gift some poor seamstress’s money, while his own cash is safely invested, drawing interest at ten or twelve per cent.

There is a story of a church in the State of Connecticut, which for many years was partially dependent upon the aid of the Home Missionary Society for funds to meet the expenses of public worship. They raised what they could, or in other words what they chose to, and then by proper representations of their poverty, they secured the balance needed from the treasury of “the society.”

One year a humble laboring man, who carted coal and did other similar work for his living, moved into that neighborhood. He was not wealthy, and so was not especially honored, but he earned his bread by honest labor, and was usually found in his place in the house of prayer. One day not long afterwards, one of the deacons of the church,—Deacon A—, a man who had considerable money, and knew how to hold on to it,—went around the neighborhood, as was customary, with a subscription paper, to see what funds could be secured to meet the expenses of public worship for the ensuing year. The first person he met was our friend the coal-carter, with his team, and though he had not much hope from him in the way of pecuniary assistance, yet as “every little helps,” he thought he would not pass him by. Accordingly he broached the subject with:—

“Good morning, Mr. B—, are you willing to give anything toward the support of our pastor?” at the same time handing him the subscription paper.

The man stopped, stood thoughtfully a moment or two, and drawing out his pencil with his grimy hand wrote his name at the head of the paper, and set against it $50. The deacon took the paper and looking at it with incredulous surprise, and thinking the man had made a mistake, said:—

“Did you not mean that for fifty cents?” The carter straightened himself up and emphatically replied:—

“I do not value the gospel at fifty cents a year!”

His subscription was fifty dollars, and it was a revelation to the deacon, who went away with a new idea, and calling at once upon his pastor and narrating the circumstance, said, “If that man is able to give fifty dollars, I am able to give two hundred and fifty;” and so he was; and he did it. Others, stimulated by the good example, and shamed out of their littleness and covetousness, gave as the Lord prospered them, and they found that henceforth they had no occasion to call upon missionary societies to do their work, or bear the expenses which they themselves were fully able to meet.

There is a lesson here which many might ponder with profit. This “fifty-cent religion” is far too abundant,—a religion which transfers a man from the world into some sect, but does not cleanse him of his innate covetousness and greed. A religion which is valued at fifty cents a year by the man who counts his wealth by thousands, is of very little use to himself or any one else; and the man who, possessing this world’s goods, casts such a scanty pittance into the treasury of the Lord, would do well to cease his talk about his “widow’s mite” until he like that widow of old had “cast in all” his “living” as an offering to God. A religion that has not lifted a man above this contemptible level has done very little to profit him in this world, and may do still less to benefit him in the world to come.

God calls for manly men, whose honest, faithful, grateful souls abhor the petty tricks and meannesses of a covetous generation, and who take the gauge of their religious obligations, not from worldly examples of sharp practice and selfish calculation, but from the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich. There is little room for this fifty-cent religion among men who know that they are bought with the Redeemer’s blood, and that they are not their own, but that all their powers and all their gains are the rightful possession of the Lord to whom they have yielded themselves as servants for time and for eternity. How much do you value the gospel of Christ? What are you doing to spread it?—The Christian.