p. 720 | Poor Policy by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 27, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 45.

Poor Policy.

By Editor

THIS was our first thought on reading the following item in an Oakland daily paper:—

"A supper will be given this evening from five to eight o'clock, in the parlors of the First Methodist Church, for the purpose of raising funds to place an old lady, who is in destitute circumstances, in the Old Ladies' Home. Admission, twenty-five cents."

Let us do a little figuring on this matter. It is proposed to raise the small sum needed for this charitable deed, from the proceeds of a supper, for which each partaker will pay twenty-five cents. It would hardly be possible to get up such a supper as would be acceptable, at a cost of less than fifteen cents for each individual, taking everything into consideration. So, then, for every twenty-five cents received, only ten cents are applied to the charity. Now if instead of having the supper, each individual should pay ten cents into the treasury, the same amount would be raised, with a saving to the donors of fifteen cents each. Or, better still, each one could give his twenty-five cents, the same price that is charged for the supper, and thus a much larger sum would be realized. In either case more money would be raised, with less trouble, than by means of the supper.

Aside from this, there would be the advantage to each individual of having his sympathies drawn out toward a charitable object, and his generous impulses strengthened; whereas in this case, their money is spent for purely selfish reasons. Those who contribute, do so only for their own selfish gratification—that they may have a jolly time, and a good meal. It is this that we regard as the worst feature of such methods of raising money. Instead of it being more blessed to give than to receive, the giver (if it is allowable to apply that title to one who pays his money for a supposed equivalent) is cursed rather than blessed by his deed.

And this puts another thought into our mind: perhaps the church authorities understand their business, after all. They are business men and women of experience, and in raising means would naturally take the course best adapted to that end. Their experience has doubtless taught them that to pursue the course we have marked out, would result in nearly, if not quite, a failure, so far as raising money is concerned. If this be true, what a comment it is upon the moral condition of the mass of church-going people. It shows that in order to be sure of help from them for any worthy object you must appeal, not to their hearts, but to their stomachs. One of two things is certain: either the church officers are poor financiers, or else this judgment is just. We are speaking now of the churches in general, and not of any individual church.

And now, once more: If money for benevolent and church purposes can be raised more readily by appeals to appetite and passion than by appeals to the moral sensibility of the people, and their love for God, whom do they worship? Are they not "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God?" We do not see how their worship can be any better described than it is by the apostle in Phil. 3:18, 19:—

"For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things."

Can any idolatry be worse than that? If this scripture does not apply in such cases, who can tell us where it does? So then, whatever may be the present financial results, we still say—"A poor policy."