p. 173 | SUSTAINING THE TRUTH by W. Phelps

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 21, 1859

SUSTAINING THE TRUTH.

By W. Phelps

BRO. SMITH : I have just taken up Review No. 19, and read Bro. Sanborn's call for help to sustain Bro. Ingraham in the field. I hope the brethren will feel the weight of the precious cause and the worth of precious souls, and wake up to the subject. Bro. Ingraham must be kept in the field. The Lord is soon coming, and the harvest is great and the laborers are few, and precious souls are perishing all around for want of the truth. I am aware that brethren are mostly poor, and some are very poor, but most all can do something to help on the cause if they feel a responsibility on them. Some would do something to help on the precious cause if they only had means that they had no other use for. Others mean to help the cause after they have accumulated a certain amount of property; then they can do a great deal. Dear brother, the cause may not need any of your help by that time: Now is the time to help while the cause is suffering for want of it.

There are some that are willing enough to help the messengers if they will only ask them for it. One brother once said to me, Bro. Phelps, if you want any thing that I have got you must let me know it. Well, I do not think this is right. If the Lord of the harvest has sent the messengers into the wide harvest-field to labor, he has also laid the responsibility upon their brethren to inquire after their wants. I know the messengers feel a diffidence about asking their brethren for aid to sustain them in the field. I have been acquainted with some brethren that seemed to think when they were helping the messengers, they were doing it because they were objects of charity. I often think of a remark that a Sabbath-keeper once made in relation to helping a messenger a great deal, and then, said he, he never thanked us for it either. Well, that might have been. But I don't know of any messenger that is an object of charity. I don't know of any that can't take care of themselves and families if they were to leave the field and go to work with their hands. But God has laid on them the burden of souls, and they deprive themselves of the society of their families and go forth into the wide harvest-field trusting in God, declaring the good news of the kingdom at hand. And while they do this, it is the duty of their brethren to sustain them in it.

It is one commou cause that we are engaged in. It is the last message of mercy to a dying world. All are alike interested in it. I hope the brethren will wake up to this subject and take hold anew. I feel that what is done must be done quickly. I feel to gird on the armor anew and never give over until the victory is won.

In hope of soon seeing the King in his beauty.

W. PHELPS.

Ft. Atkinson, Wis.