SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE by James White

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 31, 1859

SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE.

By James White

We are glad to see our brethren waking up to this matter. See letters in this number from Brn. Day, Davis and Chapel. A few raise objections, but they are of such a trifling nature that we have not noticed them. Two objections to the suggested plan we will however notice.

First. "It is wrong to state the sums of our weekly benevolence for the future, as we cannot tell how we shall be prospered." Answer: The Apostle does not say, as the Lord shall prosper you each week; but "as the Lord hath prospered." He would not have them descend to all the particulars of each week's prosperity; but each give according to their present ability, as the Lord had in past life prospered them with property, health, or ability to acquire means. The farmer and the mechanic must take this general view of the subject. Those who are so very poor that their weekly benevolence must necessarily vary, may be excused from entering the arrangement. They are more properly subjects to receive than to give. We see no reason why all who are able to give anything may not give their names, and the sums they wish to give, (having the permission of Providence always understood,) "as the Lord hath prospered them." Should sickness, or losses, reduce their property, they would be released from their former pledges, to make others according to circumstances.

Second objection. "The plan suggested through the REVIEW is to raise money to pay our preachers for their labors, while Paul's plan was to raise donations for the poor." Stop awhile, brother! Let us hear what the Apostle says on this point. Rom. xv, 25-27.

"But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them, verily; and their DEBTORS they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things."

Ah, verily! Paul's plan of systematic benevolence was to raise means to pay a debt which the Gentile churches owed to their poor teachers at Jerusalem.

And this is what we have been pleading for, that the churches and brethren who have been partakers of the good word of God as they have listened to the present truth, should raise means to remunerate (in part, at least) those poor saints who have left their homes and have gone out from Maine to Iowa to preach the Third Angel's Message.

Our soul is sick of fault-finders, whose business seems to be to find fault, but never to suggest a remedy. Now we say to all, If the plan is not scriptural in all respects, just suggest a remedy for the defective part, or parts, or get up a new one. It is time to do something. Some seem very much inclined to go to sleep. Probably they will, to be aroused too

late. But it is time that the living members of the church of Christ arise, to an individual, and act upon the scriptural plan of benevolence, to save our ministers from leaving their work to labor with their hands for a livelihood.

The church in Battle Creek find it a pleasing duty to act upon the plan of Systematic Benevolence suggested in the REVIEW; and where all take a part the share of each is so very small they do not feel it. Bro. Bates shows us the figures of the doings of only eight of the little church at Jackson, yet their yearly charity amounts to $73,00.

If all the friends of present truth would come up to the work, and do in proportion to numbers and property with the Battle Creek church, the annual amount would be at least $15000. We will here make an estimate one third below, as follows: Maine, $200; New Hampshire, $300; Massachusetts, $400; Connecticut, $200; Vermont, $1300; New York, $2000; Michigan, $2000; Ohio, $1200; Indiana, $300; Illinois, $700; Wisconsin, $700; Iowa, $600; elsewhere, $100. Total, $10000.

This sum will support thirty humble, plain, economical missionaries, and leave them free from all pecuniary embarrassments. It now remains for the church to say whether it shall be done. Will our preachers and brethren speak out, and act on this noble enterprise? J. W.