The Missionary by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 18, 1886

The Missionary.

By Editor

Christian Tithing.

UNDER the above head a correspondent of the Watchman, a Baptist paper of Boston, speaks as follows:—

“Being a firm believer in the law of giving, as taught in the New Testament as well as in the Old, I have prepared the following figures with the hope that it may incite some to begin with the new year the practice of tithing their income. If all members of Christian churches should do this, every institution of learning would be amply endowed, every minister in the land would have a comfortable support, every church debt would be paid, every missionary debt would be wiped out, and the treasuries of all our benevolent societies would be overflowing.”

He then makes an estimate of the Baptist denomination. Considering the numbers and standing of the members of that body, we cannot say but that his calculation is within bounds:—

“In round numbers there belong to the Baptist family of the United States 2,500,000.

Suppose 50 have an income of $50,000 each ....$ 500,000.00 Suppose 100 have $25,000 each .... 2,500,000.00 Suppose 5,000 have $10,000 each .... 50,000,000.00 Suppose 10,000 have $5,000 each .... 50,000,000.00 Suppose 10,000 have $2,500 each .... 25,000,000.00 Suppose 10,000 have $1,500 each .... 15,000,000.00 Suppose 20,000 have $1,000 each .... 20,000,000.00 Suppose 50,000 have $500 a year .... 25,000,000.00 Suppose 1,000,000 $1.00 a day, or $250 a year .... 250,000,000.00 Total estimated income from 1,105,110 persons...$488,000,000.00

“Take 1,105,110 from total membership of 2,500,000, and it would leave 1,394,890, more than one-half, who are not calculated to give one cent.

“Ten per cent. on the estimated income would be $48,800,000, which is $37,000,000 more than is now contributed from all sources and for all objects! When will the Christian church awake to her duty and high privilege of giving? C. W. G.”

On this the editor comments as follows:—

“It is unhappily too true that the majority of those who profess that they are Christ’s know very little of the truth of his remembered saying, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ The number is very small who have any other system of giving than to give as little as they can and save appearances; and many do not try to save appearances. In these observations we do not include the payment of pew-rents. That is payment ‘for value received,’ not giving. The greater part of all that is given for missions and the various departments of associated benevolence is given by comparatively few. Divide the whole sum by the whole number of church members, and find the average; then deduct from the whole sum the larger donations; deduct the number of large donors from the whole number, and again divide, and see how small is the average gift. Thus, the churches of Massachusetts reported last year an average of eighty-four cents a member for foreign missions. But some doubtless gave thousands, some hundreds, some fifties, some tens of dollars. The remainder, the large majority, must have given much less than eighty-four cents each.

“It is not wonderful that this state of things should excite anxious concern, not for the cause

of Christ so much as for our brethren's sake. Andrew Fuller remarks that covetousness is the ruin of more souls than almost any other sin; for it is the only sin that one can cherish without forfeiting his Christian profession.”

In the calculation of C. W. G. there is no account taken of “offerings,” which, if properly made, would largely swell the amount.

The editor, while enforcing the remarks of the correspondent, dissents from his view that the law of tithing is in force. We believe that to this lax view is to be attributed the barrenness of the churches of this age. If the duty of tithing had been continuously taught and enforced by Scripture testimony, the treasuries of the churches would not be empty, missionary efforts would not be left to suffer, and the influence would be felt in the quickened consciences of the members, and in a greatly increased interest in Christian effort.

If all Christians could be brought to believe and realize that Mal. 3:8-12 speaks to them, no one can conceive the influence which it might have on the work of the church. Read it again and again. EDITOR.