benevolent a million dollars and to expend it judiciously in the
erection of churches, school-houses and colleges. Every dollar of
this money is freighted with prayer and winged with love. It will
be found again presently as treasure laid up in heaven. It is like
an inspiration to think how much of Christ’s spirit is represented
in these buildings built for the love of Him. But they must be
used. The very stones and brick will cry out against us, if we
neglect to follow up what has been done with still greater work in
the future.
The Executive Committee in their annual report call for one
thousand dollars a day, as needed for current expenses the coming
year. In order to raise this sum the ordinary contributions must be
increased to $225,000, an advance of one-half over last year. In
view of the great issues at stake, and the unexampled opportunities
of the Association for doing its work, your Finance Committee
recommend that this increase be made.
Let this be the key-note of our appeals this year: _One thousand
dollars a day; 50 per cent. advance on all contributions._
All of which is most respectfully submitted,
ERASTUS BLAKESLEE, for the Committee.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. D. O. MEARS, D.D.
Now the question comes right here: shall we give according to what
we are, or what we have? One of the largest contributors in New
England told me the story of his conversion the other day, and it
was this, as we sat in the evening by his fireside. “My wife and
I,” he said, “had acquired a competence; money seemed to be coming
in. I had been brought up outside the Christian faith, and while
such a one was preaching on one occasion I debated the question:
Can I become a Christian? My wife found the light and for days I
wrestled with the question. Light would not come. I knew what it
was; it was my pocket book; shall that be included? When I decided
my pocketbook for Christ, then light broke in; and,” said he in
that narration, as a fit appendix to the whole, “I have never put
my means in any place where I have ever lost in all my experience.”
It is said that after the events at Pentecost, Andrew went down
to China and preached and that Thomas also, whose finger ached to
pierce the nail-torn hands of his Master and whose fist was almost
doubled that it might be thrust into that pierced side, went down
to China to preach the everlasting Gospel. Now 75,000 of that
race, whose great engineering works were the world’s marvel 250
years before the call of Abraham, whose emperor wrote a classic
a thousand years before David touched his sacred pen, are at our
very doors; and if it was worth while for Andrew and Thomas to go
from Jerusalem to China it is worth our work to preach to them and
teach them and call them to us when they are so near, is it not? I
remember it is written in the prophets, as I suppose Matthew read,
“Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God,” and Ethiopia
received the preaching of Matthew, so say many. I remember that
Mark founded the church in the upper part of that dark continent.
I remember that when our blessed Master fainted under the cross
it was an African who put his brawny shoulder under it and walked
by the side of our Lord, his Lord, to the crucifixion. And almost
as a revenge, though not revenge, Simon, the zealot, who looked
to Africa, was crucified himself in lower Egypt. If these thought
it worth while to evangelize Africa, what shall we say of the
7,000,000 of Africa’s sons at our very doors?
The question now comes: Can we give? Is there money enough to give?
There is an article in the “Century” for November, I think it is,
which states, after computation from two cities of considerable
size, that four-fifths of the inhabitants were attendants upon
church services. The figures struck me with absolute astonishment
and consternation. And, you remember, a year ago it was said
that fully one-fifth of all the property in the United States,
according to calculation, is held in the hands of Christians. I
saw this so late that I had not time to go over it extensively;
so I took the single city of Worcester. I took the 322 highest
tax-payers in that city, and I called on a man who I supposed knew
best the church-going habits and pew-owning property of these
leading business men, and I said: “Will you tell me where this one
goes and that one goes?” We marked them off last Sunday night,
and of the whole 322 we found only 65 whom we did not know to be
church-goers; and it is safe to say from the percentage that 25
of the 65 were church-goers—men who belonged to families that we
felt sure would attend the house of God. We knew that 255 attended
church; and adding the 25 that were doubtful, we had 280 out of
320 of the leading men in the city of Worcester that attend the
Protestant churches in that city. Take the banks. There are eleven
banks in Worcester, and we went over the names of the directors
and trustees. Out of the entire number (there were two unknown) we
found only three individuals that were not represented in a church,
and two of these were the same man—that is, one was a director in
two banks.
Now, what is the use? Shall we say that the money belongs to the
evil and the piety to the good? The piety and the money, the heart
and the gold, are ever in the church. We are reading of a house to
be put up in a celebrated watering-place that will cost $750,000.
I saw that in the city of New York the land where that great
opera-house is, brought the sum of $700,000. The owner of this
property in either case would keep two great organizations like
this going; and I said, “What! do we want some of that money that
is to build that summer resort by the sea?” No, we don’t want it.
“But we would like some of that money that is beneath that splendid
building that is costing its millions?” No; we don’t want it. If
men will build houses for self, let the Christian do his work for
the Master, and let us outdo the world.
But I must hasten. There is this demand of the nation upon us.
It is said that Robert Peel was riding with his daughter on her
birthday—he had given her a splendid riding habit, and the two
were admired by all who saw them, and the father looked with pride
upon his daughter—and in less than a week the daughter was beneath
the sod. The seamstress had sewed the habit while sitting by the
side of the bed of her husband groaning under the delirium of
the typhus; and in the chill that came upon him she had cast the
garment over him. The typhus of the garret became the typhus of
that celebrated house. And we are concerned with the swamps, with
the morasses, with these debased and poor colored people. We cannot
afford to be other. I would, if there were time, enlarge upon this
in connection with the report so admirably given; but I must pass
on.
It is said that the Puritan captain Hodgdon was riding one day
at the head of his company near the mountains when he heard the
sound of a bugle. As he heard it he said to his soldiers: “Halt!”
and every man leaned on his arms. “List! I love to hear the sound
of the bugle: there is so much of God in it.” Yesterday came the
report from the counties of Kentucky. It was a bugle-blast to this
assembly. Was God in it? 500,000 people who could not read their
names, though written in characters that might be read 100 rods
off—500,000 illiterate, ten years of age and above, in Kentucky,
Tennessee and West Virginia! From the mountains there comes the
sound of the bugle that has stirred us. Did it wake us up? Was God
in it? I heard a voice in that sound. We are told in our press and
from our platforms that the A. M. A. is not doing full work in the
South, and other helpers must come. Wait. Don’t hurry. The bugle
has sounded; it was God that was sounding it. I ask for no vote
of this assembly. I call for no show of hands. Yet, if you wait
before God, you must answer in the name of this world to his call:
“I ordain you to go and devote $50,000 to the mountain work, in
Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.” It must be done. There is
no drawing back.
It is said that when Robert Bruce was marching to meet Edward, and
came within sight of the glittering sheen, he said to his soldiers,
“Kneel down, every one”; and the army of Robert Bruce, with their
eyes to the earth and their lips moving, offered their prayers to
God, then rose up—a little army—and defeated the English. It was
God’s voice that sounded like a bugle. It is for the soldiers to
pray, and to fall where the bugle calls.
One other point only, briefly, in regard to this question of the
demand that Christ makes on us. We must never establish a condition
that he has not established; never set up a standard which he
has not set up; but follow him and receive the blessing while we
follow. It was the remark of Augustus that he found Rome of brick
and left it of marble. Our fathers, a century ago, found this
nation half slave and half free. It is now left a free nation. God
grant it may become, by Christian effort, as good as it is free! In
a dark day of our war when the armies were failing, and the hopes
of the nation were placed in Lincoln and Lincoln lost hope, when
our courage depended upon him and our flag seemed as if about to be
rent by an unseen hand—when Lincoln said, “I see no hope”, for the
rush of the armies seemed away from the South and up back to the
North, Stanton uttered the words that gave courage to his heart:
“Weary man, don’t you know that the churches of the North are
everywhere praying for you?” And the weary look passed away from
his face, and the smile came back to its wonted place. The children
of Father Abraham need the prayers of the churches of Christ.
* * * * *
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT GIVING.
BY REV. WM. M. TAYLOR, D.D.
In his sermon entitled “How to be a Christian in Trade,” a
discourse which illustrates the wonderful combination of practical
sagacity with spiritual insight, for which he was so remarkable,
Dr. Bushnell says that “the great problem we have now on hand is
the Christianizing of the money power of the world,” and again
that “what we wait for, and are looking hopefully to see, is the
consecration of the vast money power of the world to the work, and
cause, and kingdom of Jesus Christ. For that day, when it comes,
is the morning, so to speak, of the new creation. That tide-wave
in the money power can as little be resisted when God brings it
on as the tides of the sea; and like these also it will flow
across the world in a day.” This witness is true, and it becomes
us all, to pray and labor for the fulfilment of the prophecy that
men shall come, “their silver and their gold with them, unto the
name of the Lord our God.” But here the revival must begin in the
Church itself. In former times we have had revivals with distinct
characteristics. One was remarkable for the blessing which rested
on preaching, another for the spirit of prayer which seemed to be
poured out on the people generally; another for the interest that
was evoked in the study of the Scriptures. What we have yet to
see is a revival of which the chief distinguishing feature shall
be liberal giving to the cause of the Lord Jesus, and when that
comes it will be the prophecy of yet grander things for the promise
“prove me now herewith if I will not open you the windows of heaven
and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to
receive it,” was made, not in connection with an exhortation to
prayer, as so many who quote it seem to believe, but with immediate
reference to the honoring of God with our substance, for thus it
runs: “Bring ye all the tithes into the store-house, and prove
me now herewith.” While, therefore, it is true that a spirit of
liberality in the support of the cause of Christ must be a fruit of
renewed life in the Church, it is also true that its manifestation
by the Church will be the forerunner of such spiritual triumphs
as it has never yet achieved. Thus it is of great moment that we
should use means for the awakening of Christians to a sense of the
importance of this matter, and few things, in my judgment, would
more efficiently contribute to the attainment of that end than
setting briefly and pointedly before them the teachings of the word
of God upon the subject. I cannot hope to cover all that ground in
the few minutes now at my disposal; the most I shall attempt will
be to take a general survey of it.
Beginning, then, with the act of giving itself, I find that it is
spoken of as a part of self consecration to God, for when at the
close of his reign David brought out in the sight of all the people
the treasures which he had amassed for the building of the Temple
and sought to incite them to make an offering for the same purpose,
he said, “Who then is willing to consecrate his service this day
unto the Lord?” It is regarded as an act of worship, for God
commanded his people to “come into his courts and bring an offering
with them.” It is described by Paul as a “grace.” When writing to
the Corinthians he said, “Therefore as ye abound in everything,
in faith and utterance and knowledge, and in all diligence and
in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.” Only
think of it—“as ye abound in utterance, so abound in this grace
also.” What a blessed thing it would be in this America of ours, on
which the gift of tongues seems to have been so lavishly bestowed,
if Christians generally were as fluent in giving as they are in
speech! It is referred to again and again as a “communion” in such
passages as these: “Let him that is taught in the word communicate
to”—that is, have communion with Him, that teacheth in all good
things, “to do good and to communicate forget not,” or, as it might
be given more literally, “Of well doing and of communion be not
forgetful, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” In the
same sense Paul, who had just received a gift from the Philippians,
thanks God for their “fellowship,” that is, “communion” in the
gospel from the first day until now; and praises them for having
done well in communicating, or rather, for the word is the same, in
having communion with his affliction; while he records it to their
credit that no church communicated with him; or, for the word is
still the same, “had communion with him in the matter of giving
and receiving but they only.” To the same effect he says to the
Corinthians that the churches of Macedonia had begged him to take
upon him the “fellowship,”—that is, “communion”—of ministering to
the saints in carrying to Jerusalem their gifts to the poor of that
city, and he urges his readers to accept a part in the same service
that God might be glorified for “their liberal distribution”—that
is, for the liberality of the communion, for so the word still
is, “unto them and unto all men.” And to mention only one other
passage, the same apostle in his Epistle to the Romans bids his
readers “distribute to the necessities of the saints,”—that is, for
the word is still the same, “hold communion with the necessities
of the saints.” Thus the making of contributions for benevolence
in every form of it in which the Church is engaged is as really
a communion service as is the observance of the Lord’s Supper.
The same word is used in reference to both, and both alike are
manifestations of the oneness of all the people of Christ in their
common Lord. If this were more generally understood and felt by us
I am sure that we should all have greater enjoyment in that part of
the service on which so many look with disfavor, the making of a
contribution; for that, as Paul gives us to understand, is only the
manifestation by us in another form of the fellowship which we show
forth when the bread and wine of the supper are passed from hand
to hand among us. In this view of the case it is to be feared that
there are far more “_close_” communionists in the Church than those
who are commonly so denominated, and it may be well for us to take
the beam out of our own eyes before we seek to become oculists to
others.
Further, this giving is distinctly spoken of in the New Testament
as a privilege. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said
“It is more blessed,” that is, it is a greater happiness “to give
than to receive.” In many enterprises in which men engage the cost
is more than the profit, “the play” as the French proverb has it,
“is not worth the candle,” but here there is always blessing;
blessing in the consciousness that we have the means of doing good;
blessing in entering into fellowship with God, whose happiness is
all that of giving out; and blessing in the fact that the joy of
the recipient comes back to us and redoubles our delight.
But passing now from the act itself to the reward promised to it,
we find that set before us in three different ways. It is first,
temporal. “Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first
fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with
plenty and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” It is,
second, spiritual, for Paul in connection with his exhortation
to the Corinthians says: “God is able to make all grace abound
toward you, that ye always, having all sufficiency in all things,
may abound to every good work being enriched in everything to all
bountifullness.” Was there ever such a piling of universal terms
one above the other as we have here? It seems as if the apostle
could not say enough to strengthen his assertion, and it is all
said in connection with cheerful giving. Nor is this all. He goes
on to say that the gifts of the Corinthians by evoking prayers
on their behalf from the hearts of the receivers, would return
in blessings into their own bosoms. You know how the process of
irrigation goes on in nature. All the rivers run into the ocean,
out of that the sun continually evaporates clouds, which the wind
blows back over the land, where they fall out in rain on the
mountains, and go to feed the rivers. Thus evermore the circle
is kept up and the lands are fertilized. Now in the same way the
gifts we make to God all run into the furtherance of his cause, and
are by him lifted up into the celestial region of his grace and
power, whence they descend again with new blessing into our hearts,
making both ourselves individually and the Church at large joyous
and productive. Then there is a third reward which is eternal; for
Jesus in the close of the parable of the prudent steward says:
“Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that
when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations.”
Money will not purchase our entrance into heaven. Nothing can do
that but the work of Christ; but the money which out of love to
Christ we give to his people and his cause will secure that we
shall be received in heaven by those whom we have been the means
of benefiting. As we enter they will take us by the hand and
lead us up to Him that sitteth on the throne, saying: This is he
whose efforts and whose gifts were, under thee, the means of our
being here; let it be done unto him as unto the man whom the King
delighteth to honor. And he will reply: Well done! “Inasmuch as ye
did it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye did it unto
me.”
Then as to the manner of the giving. We are told that it should
be cheerful, for God loveth a cheerful giver. It should be no
stereotyped and immutable thing, the same through life, but “as
God has prospered us.” It should be systematic, as the result of
careful thought and weekly planning on the Lord’s day, under the
influence of the memory of His resurrection. For it was after his
great argument on the resurrection that Paul said “now concerning
the collection,” and it was because of its connection with that
resurrection that he specified “the first day of the week” as
that on which every one should “lay by him in store as God hath
prospered him.” Weekly storing in the Lord’s box at home on the
Lord’s day, that is what Paul recommends, and then when the Lord
makes his appeal to us we can cheerfully give Him of His own. In
the neglect of this plan, and the making of gatherings for this
and that cause as each comes along, we have the explanation of
the disfavor with which, in the public service, too many hear the
announcement that a contribution will be made.
But now, finally, as to the motive. Here it is: “For ye know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for
your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be
rich.” The bringing of such a motive to bear on so simple a thing
as the making of a contribution for the poor saints of Jerusalem
seems like cracking a nut with a Nasmyth steam hammer. But Paul
knew what he was doing when he dictated these words. He wanted to
exalt and consecrate all Christian beneficence by having it done
from the most powerful Christian motive. And after the presentation
of such a motive there is no more to be said. For when men know
the grace of Christ, they will never feel that they have given Him
enough, and till they know it they will never give _Him_ anything.
They may contribute to keep up appearances so as to be like other
people, or to gain a reputation, but they will never give to _Him_
until they know His grace. This is the very pith and marrow of the
matter. Before men give to Christ they must receive from him, and
when they have received Christ Himself into their hearts they will
be impelled to give. _Im_pelled, not _com_pelled; for the delight
and the duty will coincide, or rather the duty will be merged in
the delight. So we come round to the point at which we set out. A
revived church will become a giving church, and a giving church is
the fore-herald of a converted world.
How much owest thou thy Lord? That is the question which the giver
has to face. Sometimes in commercial circles a man will assign a
debt that is owing him to some one else, out of friendship, that
he may take it when he has collected it and use it for himself.
Much in the same way, I think, the Lord Jesus has assigned a large
portion of the debt which we owe to him to those who are around
us—to the unconverted at our doors, to those races among whom you
labor, to the pagans far away. This was what Paul felt when he
said, “I am debtor, both to the wise and to the unwise, both to the
Greek and to the Barbarian”; and it was the constant feeling of
that sense of obligation that gave his life its nobleness and its
usefulness. So let it be with us; and let us see in those for whom
appeal is made to us through this Association, the representatives
of Christ.
There is a beautiful story told in Stevenson’s “Praying and
Working.” I am very fond of repeating it—I may have told it to
some of you before, but no matter—about a little child in the
orphanage of John Falk at Weimar. They were having supper in the
dining-hall, and the teacher gave thanks in the ordinary way before
the children began their meals, saying, “Come, Lord Jesus, and be
our guest to-night, and bless the mercies which Thou has provided.”
One little boy looked up and said, “Teacher, you always ask the
Lord Jesus to come, but he never comes. Will he ever come?” “Oh,
yes; if you will only hold on in faith, he will be sure to come.”
“Very well,” said the little boy, “I will set a chair for him
beside me here to-night to be ready when he comes.” And so the meal
proceeded. By-and-by there came a rap at the door, and there was
ushered in a poor half-frozen apprentice. He was taken to the fire
and his hands warmed. Then he was asked to partake of the meal,
and where should he go but to the chair which the little boy had
provided? and as he sat down there the little boy looked up with a
light in his eye, and said, “Teacher, I see it now! The Lord Jesus
was not able to come himself, and he sent this poor man in his
place. Isn’t that it?”
Aye, that is just it. And so, brethren, the Lord Jesus isn’t able,
according to His plans for this world, to come personally yet among
us, but He has sent those colored people, Chinese, Indians and
heathen to make appeal in His behalf to us, and who among us will
set a chair for Him? There are many friends with whom I hardly
agree who are very anxiously waiting for the appearance of the
personal Christ among us, and they are wondering what they shall
do to welcome Him. Would that the eyes of these brethren and our
own too were opened to the perception of the Christ that is already
here, in the persons of those needing to be helped and educated and
elevated, and that their ears could hear His words, “Inasmuch as
ye do it unto one of the least of these His brethren ye do it unto
Christ.”
That is the Christian philosophy of giving, and if a man does not
feel the force of these considerations I should be disposed to say
he has not yet begun to be a Christian.
* * * * *
ADDRESS OF REV. DR. DENNEN.