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Show THE CHURCH REVIEW. <br><br> from the beginning and I find his estimate was conservative. The figures are approximate, but they are substantially correct. I find that the Presbyterians away in the van leading all Protestant workers, according to Dr. McNiece, with an expenditure of $872,000 from the beginning and between $27,000 and $28,000 the current year. The Congregationalists come next, but by a long interval with an expenditure of nearly or quite half a million and an investment the current year of between $19,000 and $20,000. The Methodists follow hard after with an expenditure to date of about $400,000 and an investment of between $18,000 and $19,000 the current year. One who is familiar with the facts estimates that the Episcopalians have spent between $250,000 and $300,000 on school and church work in Utah and they must be expending not less than $5000 the current year. The Baptists who began late have expended nearly $100,000 in all and are investing $7500 the current year. The investment of Christian and Lutheran churches would add nearly $100,000 more and considerably increase the current annual expenditure. If you have followed these figures you will see that the total Protestant expenditure for the redemption of Utah has already exceeded two millions of dollars and is fully $80,000 the current year. These churches and these Endeavor societies are the direct outgrowth of these great gifts; for us very much has been done by others. We ought therefore in time to come to do very much for others. In a very real way the service of others to us is the source and measure of our obligation to others. <br> I have no doubt that many of you have made the inference that our first duty is to come to self-support. Our first obligation is unquestionably to raise $80,000 more for ourselves and stand squarely on our own feet with mineral in our backbone. But we shall be helped rather than hindered in our progress towards self support by interest in Christian work without our own region. That man who prayed for himself and his wife, his son and his son's wife, those four and no more, we may be sure soon ceased to pray. We are familiar with the young man who is going to make some large gift when he gets rich. All history is against him. He never gives when he gets rich, unless his heart is opened by constant giving, his gifts increasing as his means increase; there is no flowing fountain from which large gifts may come. When the American Board some eighty years ago applied for a charter from the Massachusetts legislature, there were those who opposed saying that it was not wise to export religion inasmuch as the supply was scant at home. A more discerning member observed that such was the nature of Christianity that the more you exported the more you would have at home. In the realm of the material, the tactual, seen, and physical giving is loss, but another and utterly different law obtains in the world of truth and spirit. In that wide universe the more we give the more we have. "He that saveth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for Christ's sake shall find it." If our hearts be opened and our hands extended to world-wide mission endeavor self-support at home will not tarry in its coming. <br> We have noted some reasons why we ought to give, let us briefly note how we may best give. Systematic giving is the answer. Because there are multitudes of systematic givers in the older sections of the land, therefore mission gifts to Utah have been large and generous. For some years it has been my duty to carry the financial burdens of a young Western college. My winters were spent in New England and New York raising funds for its current annual expenditure. I learned something about Eastern people. If there were time I could tell you of many people who live in plain homes and dress plainly, but who give with magnificent liberality. Verily the Lord loves them with a peculiar and profound tenderness passing his love for you and me. <br> With the calculating care which has made the East rich, they don't go in debt, they don't promise their money till they get it, but with the beginning of each new year, they plan to give a generous percentage of the year's income to Christian work. If you come to them with a cause which commends itself to their hearts and judgments you may be sure that they will rain $5 and $10 bills into the collection plate. If however you go to Western churches with the same cause and to people who live just as well and have just as much, they will-shall I say rain-nickels and dimes and quarters into the contribution box. Systematic giving would change all this and swiftly increase our totals of beneficence. It may be that our Mormon friends are wrong in their belief that the old Jewish law of tithing is no longer binding, though there are not a few in our protestant ranks who agree with them. Be this as it may, the fact that through many centuries God's chosen people were the subjects of that tuition is a fact of peculiar and profound meaning. It was not an incident and minor detail of Levitical law but a law centrally and vitally related to the progress of God's kingdom. If a tenth was well in that narrow land no larger than the valleys in which we dwell, before the era of world wide gospel expansion had come, certainly larger giving is Christian duty now. If under the liberty of the gospel each knowing his own circumstances may choose the percentage he will give, to Christian work, certainly none should do less, and many should do more, than the Jews before Christ came. That obligation is heavier now than ever before. We live in a generation of unparalleled missionary opportunity. In Christ's time Roman arms, the Greek tongue, and the Jewish trader had opened a highway swift and sure on which the Gospel might run and be glorified. Now for the first time since that era the whole world opens, steam and electricity have mightily compressed the globe; the doors of hermit peoples are unbarred, all lands welcome the gospel. Our duty is in proportion to the vastness of our opportunity. If so be that the Jewish law of tithing is abrogated, there is no question I think but that the duty of systematically giving some fixed proportion of one's income in the lesson of the old dispensation to the new and the obligation that spans all the centuries. Were that obligation always owned and that duty done by all of Christ's followers a new and glorious chapter would, open in Christian history. Weak churches would rise to virile strength at a bound and missionary treasuries straitened and barren would burst with inflowing riches. <br> You are young people; your habits are not fully made. Let me urge upon you the duty of systematic giving. I would that this obligation and privilege might so come home to your spirits that you would here and now make that choice for all your future living, would here and now decide that some fixed proportion of all your future incomes to Christian uses. Let that giving be first and chiefly to the church with which your membership is; but let it reach all the missionary causes of your denomination. You will need to take the papers and publications of your missionary boards. Interest waits on knowledge and gifts spring from interest. Let your prayers follow your gifts and your gifts your prayers. Thus only shall we be obedient to that final, crowning, and supreme command of our departing Lord, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." <br><br> |
