p. 92 | SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 12, 1878

SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE.

By James White

(Continued.)

We here give a few cases of those who have freely and liberally given of their means to support the cause when its friends were few, and the fulfillment in their cases of the text which says that those who thus scatter their means will have them increased.

We became acquainted with a farmer in Central New York as early as 1847, who, with his wife and children, then observed the Sabbath. They were then living on a rented farm. The wife was feeble and was then the mother of four small children, the eldest eleven years of age. This brother then owned a span of horses, a farm wagon and two cows, probably worth four or five hundred dollars. But at our first visit at the hired house of this dear family, the husband and father handed us of his scanty purse liberally, and with his team helped us on our way. From that day he gave liberally, amounting in all to a handsome property, and from that day also his property increased until in the time of high prices he was supposed to be worth twenty thousand dollars. They have now six living children, all in the faith. Five of them have married those who are also in the faith. A son-in-law, after filling an important position, sleeps in bright hope, while his widow holds an important position at our California Publishing House. And now after some of the children have been liberally helped and others have been educated, the parents have left, notwithstanding the depreciation of the value of real estate, a threefold competency. God grant that they may finish their course with faithfulness and joy, that as they have received a hundred-fold in this world they may in the world to come reap life everlasting.

A brother who was a blacksmith at Jackson, Michigan, embraced the Sabbath in 1849 under the labors of Elder Joseph Bates, and he at once felt that it was his duty to give of his hard earnings to support the cause. He commenced by handing a five-dollar gold piece to preachers of the present truth who enjoyed the hospitalities of his good home over night. In the morning, as they took their leave of the family, the piece of gold was sure to come from his liberal hand. And when means were raised for tents and the support of tent companies, for printing presses and material, or to send missionaries into new fields, the donations of D. R. P. have stood among the receipts always as large as those of any other, and generally the largest.

About fifteen years since we were conversing with him in his shop upon the subject of giving, and the providence of God in blessing the cheerful giver, when he invited us to take a seat with him upon the huge frame of his sling, where he shoes oxen, and talk the matter over. He remarked in substance as follows:— “I commenced to hand out of my means immediately after receiving the Sabbath. I have felt that I must have a share in every enterprise for the advancement of the cause, and it has been a pleasure to give as much as any other one, and now I am worth four times as much as when I began to keep the Sabbath. Here he broke down and wept freely, but they were tears of joy in view of the providence of God in blessing his labors, in fulfillment of the words of Christ, ‘Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.’ Luke 6:38. This brother has given for the support of the cause, from first to last, a large property, and has retired from the hard labor of his trade moderately wealthy. May he never become weary in well-doing.”

We became acquainted with Bro. J. P. K. as early as 1855. He was then a farmer in Livingston county, Michigan. He and his good family had just embraced the Sabbath. His health was failing from hard labor on the farm, and the members of his family were generally feeble. But this brother was ardent in the cause, and it was put into his heart by the Spirit of God that he should use his means to spread the present truth. He sold his farm for six thousand dollars, and began to use it in earnest. He urged us to take sixty dollars at the time we held a Conference in his neighborhood; and as we had no immediate use for it we refused it. But on our arrival at Rochester, N. Y., we found a letter containing the sixty dollars. We gave him credit for this sum, and at a later date, when the Review Office was moved to Battle Creek, and he was much reduced in property, we handed him the sixty dollars, thanking him for the use of the money several years.

Bro. J. P. K. moved his large family to Jackson, and there gave of his means with a liberal hand to that extent that when he moved to Battle Creek a few years later, and when the subject of Systematic Benevolence was first introduced, he put his property down at fifteen hundred dollars. Then, by the advice of the writer in harmony with his own convictions of duty, he took up his former business of the manufacture of brooms. God blessed his labors to that degree that he was able to stand in the first ranks of the liberal donors in the establishment of our institutions at Battle Creek, and in a few years he put down his property on the S. B. book at ten thousand dollars. And although he now feels the infirmities of age and toil, and has reduced his property to a liberal competency, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he has sent thousands of his earthly treasure before him to be laid up in heaven, waiting for him when the Master shall come, and that he had the privilege of lifting at the great wheel of the cause when the car moved hard and slowly, and when a hundred dollars was worth more to the cause and will tell in heaven more than a thousand given now.

One case more and we dismiss this part of the subject. We know a preacher of present truth who commenced in the message with broken-down health as early as 1846. At that time he married one that was very feeble. They were penniless. After the birth of their first child, he supported his family by chopping cord wood, and had a small surplus to bear their expenses to the first Conference held in the interest of the third message. This meeting was held at Rock Hill, Conn., in the spring of 1848. In that State he earned forty dollars, which bore their expenses to Western New York, where the second Conference was held. On their return, the Lord showed sister W. that if they were faithful he would bless them in this life a hundred-fold the money earned in the hay field, and crown them with the gift of life eternal in the world to come. At that time they did not expect to ever own a home of their own, and were content with the humblest fare if they could see the cause of truth prosper.

In thirteen years from the time that promise was given, they owned the property on the north-east corner of Washington and Champion streets, Battle Creek, Michigan, worth four thousand dollars, just a hundred-fold the forty dollars earned mowing hay in the State of Connecticut. Their labors and privations have been great. Their house and their purse have ever been open to the servants of God. During each five years of their labors they have given more for the cause than they were worth at the commencement of the five years. They have each had not less than four shocks of paralysis, from which God has raised them to physical and mental power, and now while journeying on in the second half-century of life, they stand in the front ranks of the battle.

In the Rocky Mountains, in the year 1873, they gave themselves, their children, and their property to the Lord in a solemn covenant, praying that the Lord would accept them, their children, and their property, and use them and it in his cause. Since that time has been a period of their most efficient labors; their sons have filled important positions at our publishing houses at Battle Creek and Oakland, and it has been their pleasure to put fifteen thousand dollars into the several branches of the cause; and after doing their duty by their children they have fourfold a humble competency, and are anxiously watching for opportunities to put it where it will best serve the cause to which they have given their lives.

J. W.

(To be continued.)