It is one thing for a man to _say_ he is for the Bible, the whole Bible
and nothing but the Bible, and it is quite another thing to _learn_
and _practice_ some of the first and clearest lessons of the Bible.
The only authority there is in the Bible for preaching the gospel at
all, requires that it be preached in all the world—to every creature.
Yet, strange to say, the first thing many seem to think of, and the
only thing, is the mere vicinity where they reside. They are frequently
few, weak and uninfluential; can get no preacher to their vicinity; or
if they do get one once in a great while, they entertain him with an
account of their weakness and inability to pay, make him sacrifice more
to preach for them than they all sacrifice to support him. In other
words, if they ought to give him thirty dollars, by a hard stretch they
raise fifteen dollars, and send him off fifteen dollars minus what he
ought to have had. After thus disheartening him, breaking him down and
starving him, or especially his wife and children, they comment upon
the old adage, “charity begins at home.”
Declaim against foreign missions, and prepare to give the State Board
twenty-five dollars if the Board will send them one hundred dollars
worth of preaching. After they treat a preacher in this way a few
times, he is compelled from absolute necessity to abandon them. Thus,
isolated, forsaken and helpless, they take no publications, know
nothing of what is going on, pine away and die. This shows the utter
fallacy of little, weak and helpless congregations keeping themselves
isolated. They should act with their brethren, report themselves, be
known in all their efforts, and send in their contributions, no matter
how small. The ground of complaint here is, however, more on the part
of preachers than any place else. In all our preaching, we should
inculcate a missionary spirit, the importance of acting in harmony,
unitedly and with energy in all our undertakings to evangelize the
world.