SYSTEMATIC BENEVOLENCE.
By Editor
It was at a time when it seemed that our preachers must leave the gospel field for want of support that the subject of systematic benevolence was taken hold of. It was the apparent extreme necessities of the case that drove us to engage in the work of establishing among an unorganized people a system by which the cause might be sustained. Then our preachers might visit and labor with the most numerous and wealthy bodies of Sabbath-keepers, and not receive enough to pay such incidentals as plank-road and bridge fees, horse-shoeing, &c. Now those very churches have from ten to fifty dollars in the treasury, and urge more on their preachers than some choose to take. No one need be burdened, as it is an extremely light draft on the poor brother, and those who have so much of this world that the draft is large should be the last to object. It is a beautiful system, and should be guarded in every direction. Its object was, and is, to advance the cause of the third angel's message. You can find poor enough in the church on whom to bestow all your systematic benevolence money; but this is not the object of the system. And we judge from the experience of the past twelve years that in nine cases out of ten of the poor who might thus be helped, it would prove to them an injury. We would relieve present hunger or nakedness, but beyond this, with people who have strength to labor, or the means of a living, we can see no duty. We would say to our brethren that it may be your duty to know how means are to be expended before handing it out. This is your duty, as ministers who give the whole mind to preaching are generally very poor financiers. Be familiar with your preachers, and know their circumstances, and their wants, and know how the money you hand out is appropriated. We repeat that the object of systematic benevolence is the advancement of the cause of the third message. If your means thus raised be appropriated to other objects, then it will be time for you to withhold your liberal hands. A little imprudence on the part of some of our preachers will give a large place for Satan to tempt the brethren, and result in crushing the noble spirit of systematic benevolence among us. Then let the system be guarded at every point. We hope every brother and sister, who can enter upon this arrangement, have with the new year consecrated a certain sum for each week for 1862, to go into the treasury for the advancement of the third message. If all have not done so, we hope they will at once join a system which is in the highest sense scriptural, reasonable, and complete in the accomplishment of the object to be gained by it.