Our New Departure (Brooks)/Chapter 18

Our early training and traditions were all against religious Giving. Rebounding from the beliefs of the Church, as there has been occasion several times to repeat, we rebounded from and antagonized its methods also; and among these methods, none, perhaps, were more stiffly opposed than the system of Church Beneficence. It was denounced as priestcraft, and as part of a system designed to subject the country to sectarian domination, and to exercise a baleful influence on our civil and religious liberty. Patriotism as well as anti-orthodoxy was appealed to, to discourage and frown upon it. These appeals, unfortunately, were vigorously seconded by the natural selfishness of the human heart, and a cordial welcome was thus insured for the teaching which accompanied them. So we grew up, with our education and our selfishness alike concurring to render us averse to systematic contributions for religious ends. Occasional efforts in this direction appear to have been made, notwithstanding the general current of denominational sentiment in this particular; and there are even indications that there was a time in our early history when our parishes were expected to make annual contributions to our Convention—though precisely for what purpose is not clear. These attempts, however, were feeble and spasmodic, and seem not to have been of much avail. As the result, amidst the constant warfare against 'sectarian begging,' and anathemas as constant against all 'priestly devices' for drawing money from the people's pockets, we naturally became a people bristling with hostile prejudices against any and all efforts to raise money for religious purposes, outside ordinary parish expenses, and a rare contribution in response to some special appeal.

Under these circumstances, when the necessities of our ​work and the demand for something like enterprise and educational provisions on our part began to press, we had the whole previous education of years to unlearn, and the prejudices so carefully fostered to conquer and outgrow. As might have been expected, our first schools begged and starved—as was painfully exemplified in the early history of Clinton, not to speak of others of the same class, and in the struggles by which our Theological School at Canton for a long time just kept its head above water; and till very recently our Missionary efforts, after longer or shorter attempts to live, invariably came to an untimely end, with this verdict to be rendered above their remains: Died of the lack of money, because of the indisposition of the people to give. Whatever the call sent out for purposes of Church-extension, it was sure to be treated with neglect by most of our ministers and parishes, while it received but scanty response from those who responded at all; and when it was seriously proposed to go before the denomination for One Hundred Thousand Dollars, to establish Tufts College, who that was then in the field will ever forget how wild the project was thought by many to be, or how hands were lifted, and eyebrows raised, among our parishes all over the land, at the utter hardihood of such an undertaking?

We have been bravely learning since then, and an immense advance has been made in the generous disposition and habits of our people. Schools and colleges have been endowed; the Murray Fund—so much of it as we have—has been raised; the honorable record of our Centenary Year has been made; church-debts have been paid, and splendid church-edifices have been reared; and various gifts, scattered along our path, have told of open hands and liberal hearts. But we have as yet simply begun to learn and to do in this respect—as in most others. We have only to look at our Murray Fund, still incomplete,—and to reckon up the unfilled quotas of the Special Fund, called for to liquidate the debt incurred mainly by the mistaken policy of pouring all our Centenary receipts into the Murray Fund, leaving the expenses to be afterwards provided for,—and to consider the meagre revenue from the Missionary Boxes for the year past, and especially have only to read ​over the returns of the last collection under the rules of our Convention, and to see how comparatively small is the number of parishes (one hundred and sixty-four out of a reported aggregate of nine hundred and sixty-nine) which have taken the collection, and how comparatively small are most of the amounts given by those which have taken it, to perceive that we have a great deal more to learn, and a vast advance yet further to make, ere we shall fulfil our obligations by contributing the resources which our opportunities and our work require.

Here, then, is a call for a New Departure which we cannot slight, if we are a Church of Christ, in this world to stay. God be thanked for all we have wrought and given! Let there be no scolding or fault-finding towards anybody—only hearty commendation and encouragement for those who, in any measure, have done their duty. But we must recognize the facts as they are, and learn the lesson of an increased generosity. There must be more freedom, and largeness, and universality of giving, or the wheels of our activities cannot go on. Not some, but all of our ministers must be in sympathy with what as a Church we are trying to do, and enjoin on their hearers the duty of participating as they are able in these gifts to God and the Church—enforcing their words by themselves giving as they can; not a part, but all of our parishes must enroll themselves among those faithful in whatever collections or contributions the rules of our Convention or the exigencies of our work require; and more and more we must all feel the imperativeness alike of the demand and of the obligation that we 'lay by us in store, as God has prospered us,' for the furtherance of our truth, and having remembered it according to this ratio while living, those blessed with means must fail not to bequeath something of the bounty God has bestowed, to help it forward, when they die.

Dollars are 'the sinews of war,' as we witnessed to our cost, when it became necessary to roll up a debt of such frightful proportions in our contest with treason, for the salvation of our republic. They are equally the sinews of all organized effort. Little can be done in this world, in any field, without them. Commerce needs them. But so, not ​less, do labor, and law, and art, and philanthropy, and religion; and Universalism cannot be organized and pushed, nor our Church make itself felt to widest purpose, save as Universalists catch the impulse of generosity, and learn the grace of Giving. The sooner we all awake, in the pulpit and out of it, to a thorough comprehension of this fact, the better. "Give," said our Lord, "and it shall be given unto you." A great principle underlies these words. "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself." This is the Providential law—as true of churches or communities as of individuals; and no church or denomination ever has prospered, or ever can prosper, except on the condition thus ordained. Christ gave himself, and those who took up his work gave their money,—those of them who had it,—themselves, their all, for his sake: how else could the first Christian Church have been planted, or could Christianity itself have become a power in the world? And all through Christian history, the Church that has opened its hands and given the most, other things being equal, has been the Church which has taken widest hold of the popular heart, and gathered most souls about its altars.

This is still the law; and under it our future is to be determined. If, therefore, we have really any desire to be a great Church, helping to save the world, here is one of the inexorable conditions on which alone we can become so: We must give, and giving henceforth must be the rule and not the exception among us. Think of the munificent donations and bequests of which we are constantly hearing, bestowed for educational and church-uses by members of sister denominations—and then of the innumerable little streams besides that are constantly flowing into their treasuries! Making the most of them, how diminutive is our record, and how paltry our gifts in comparison! It is time for us more profoundly to feel the rebuke, and to respond to the summons, that comes to us in such a comparison. We claim to have the faith most precious in itself, and that souls and the world most need. How, then, according to our means, can we be satisfied with ​being less generous in our service of it than are others in their service of narrower and meaner faiths? What is the spectacle we present, and the conclusion we invite, if we are so? It is very well for us to talk about the glory and excellence of Universalism, and its worth to souls, and the world's need of it: for all this is true. But how much are we sacrificing, how much are we giving, how much are we doing for it? This is the question that goes down underneath all talk, and tells the real story of our love for Universalism and our sense of its importance. And however beautiful or however true it may be, all talk about Universalism, or anybody's need of it, is mockery, is almost blasphemy, on the lips of any man or woman who is not giving for it as he or she is able. Having the best faith, Universalists ought to show themselves appreciative of it, quickened and enlarged by it; and this is what we must show, learning the lesson of Church Beneficence as others learned it long ago, or our opportunities will be wasted, and the work we are wanted to do will be transferred to those willing to pay for the privilege of doing it. To a noble mind, money is of no value in itself. Its value is solely in its uses. And no man is a Universalist really who, having money, does not regard it as God's bounty, put into his hands as a means of doing good, and therefore give according to his ability, glad to account himself God's almoner for the spread of His truth in the extension of our Church. What we want in this respect, and must have, if we are to be a living and growing Church, is a proper spirit of simple stewardship, mindful always of Paul's axiom, "It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful."

There are those who think we have had enough of this talk about money. When, they impatiently ask, are our parishes and people to have relief from these incessant appeals, that, like the daughters of Solomon's horse-leech, are forever crying, Give, give? Let such understand that, till the Church-militant becomes the Church-triumphant, and the world is redeemed, the only possible answer to their inquiry is, Never. As long as money is needed for anything in this world, it will be needed for the cause of Christ; and as long as the Universalist Church lives and tries to grow,—​and it will die, and deserve to die, whenever it ceases to try to grow,—the cry will be, Money, money, for the work of the Lord. There is no discharge from this war. And the more we give, reaping results from what we give, the more we shall have to give—because our field will broaden, our opportunities multiply, our work increase, as the calls to which we shall have to attend will become more numerous and more importunate. Only by getting out of our Church, and out of all churches, and out of the world, can these questioners get relief from the appeal to give.

Nor will these calls for money, as our Church will urge them, ever exceed our ability to answer them. There was a time when we were a poor people, and when great undertakings were impossible to us because we lacked the means to carry them forward. That time has happily ceased. With comparatively few very rich, we have few very poor. We are mainly constituted of the great middle class—among whom wealth is seldom concentrated in large fortunes, but who have a great deal of diffused wealth. Of this we have our share, making us rich,—not as rich as some other churches, but rich nevertheless, with an aggregate wealth that would surprise us should we see it stated in the actual figures. We have the means, therefore, to do whatever we may desire, or the demands of our cause make necessary; and however large our plans, not one of them will need fail if we can but have all our pocketbooks baptized and consecrated as they should be. There are too many, unfortunately, who fail to consider this, and who are still gauging our ability by the old standard of our former poverty instead of the new standard of our present affluence. All such gauging should cease. Making all due allowance for parishes that are weak, and struggling, and poor, God and the world have a right to expect that we shall devise and give according to our real possessions; and we shall stand condemned and shamed if we fail to do so.

We are, indeed, to guard against impatience and disappointment, and others, watching us, should guard against doing us injustice, if the lesson of Giving is not learned among us as rapidly as it might be. It is slow learning ​hard lessons, even when there is nothing to be unlearned. How much slower it must be when there is so much to unlearn as in our case in respect to this subject! Most unreasonable, manifestly, it would be to expect that a people not simply so untrained in systematic giving for church purposes, but drilled quite to the contrary, should at once rise out of the indisposition and irresponsiveness in which they have been educated, into the most generous comprehension of duty, and pour out their gifts with the freedom and readiness of those who, through half a dozen generations, have been trained to this very thing. Time is required, in this as in everything else. Giving is a habit to be acquired, a grace to be cultivated, an attainment to be grown into.

But while all this is to be duly taken into account, to prevent impatience and unreasonable expectations of immediate results, our obligations are none the less clear or imperative, and each year ought to show something gained, and as the consequence, a larger number of collections, and more bequests, and an increase of individual gifts, both as to number and amounts, and so a more gratifying sum-total of contributions for the endowment and extension of our Church. How can we look for the confidence or respect of other churches, or of the world, if it is not so? This is a very real thing with us; and more and more we should outgrow our indifference and irresponsiveness, our narrow and selfish ideas, and broaden into a beneficence as large-eyed and thoughtful and broad-handed as the Gospel whose name we bear. How we should give, if we should give in proportion to the breadth and generosity of this! Especially should we make haste to outgrow and put away from us the fancy which so asserts itself in the minds of not a few of our ministers and people, that whatever is bestowed for work away from home is so much taken from the resources of home-interests, necessarily lessening to this extent the minister's means of living and the ability of the parish to provide for its own support. Perhaps there is no impression more mischievous than this, in hindering the general response we ought to have to the calls of our Convention and our cause. But it is totally unfounded, besides being very ​narrow and selfish. No impression was ever more thoroughly disproved by all experience. As, invariably, the men and women who are giving most frequently are they who give most willingly, so, as universally, the parishes which most cordially and liberally put themselves into accord with general church-plans and give for church-work, are the very parishes which are found most freely and punctually meeting all home demands. This is in the nature of things. Giving being, as has been said, a habit, to be acquired, it, like all other habits, grows upon us as it is practised. That genial brother and faithful minister, Otis A. Skinner—the story of whose good life and tragic death ought some time to be fitly told—was accustomed during his first canvass for Tufts College to illustrate this by reminding the people, in his pleasant way, that if one wishes his cow to be a good, free milker, he must see that she is milked regularly, every day. If she is not, she 'dries up.' And though the illustration is a little homely, and perhaps invites a repartee as to the priestly milking of the flock, it is nevertheless apt and suggestive. The way to get people to giving most readily is to accustom them to giving—guarding of course against unreasonable and excessive calls. The clasps of purses become rusty and hard to open in proportion as they are unused; and the people whose hands it is most difficult to move into their pockets are those who never give—not, usually, because they are stingy, but because they have not formed the habit of giving. For this reason, the surest plan for making a parish prompt and liberal at home, is to enlist its sympathies and open the springs of its generosity with reference to the work of the church abroad. This is the rod of Moses which brings water even from the rock.

There are two things, particularly, which we want in respect to this subject:

1. We want among our people a sense of the fact that their religion is one of the objects which have a paramount right to their money. The idea now is, too generally, that religion and the church are among the last and the least of these objects; that, in fact, it is doubtful whether they have any real claim upon what we pay for them; and that, ​if they have, it is rather by way of gratuity—because of our generosity, and not by way of right—because of any valid consideration which they can plead. It is time that all such conceptions of the subject were exploded. Let any man consider what Christianity has put into the world, and ask, whatever his character or possessions, what he would have, or be, were Christianity and all it has done for him and given to him taken out of his life, and out of the circumstances amidst which his lot is cast,—or let him consider, so far as he has any actual faith in Christ, and especially in our gospel of Universalism, what amount of money would purchase it, and he will soon see something of his debt to Christ, and something of what is the claim of his religion and his church to be counted first among the things to which his money belongs. Next to his home and his family, there is nothing for which any man is under such obligation to pay as he is to pay for his religion and his church; and neither among us nor others will this matter of Religious Giving command the action to which it is entitled until we all settle down into the recognition of our church-calls as among the primary and legitimate calls which must be met just as much as a business note, or the education of our children. Then,

2. We want a regular system of Giving. I shall not here attempt to outline any such system. Each person and family can best determine this for themselves. Some men assign a fixed portion of their income for charitable and religious purposes—like the merchant who, having read Jacob's vow, "Of all that Thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto Thee," opened a formal account with O. P. J.—the Old Patriarch Jacob, sacredly setting so much of all his gains apart to be given away. Others prefer to reach the same end in a less formal way. The way, however, is of small concern; the end is the important thing; and if, after any fashion, our people could be induced to incorporate Giving among the items of their annual expenditure, and then to systematize their Giving, so as to insure its due proportion of income for it, and its wise distribution among the several objects which are entitled to remembrance, it can easily be seen how much would be ​gained for all the interests of our cause, and all the departments of our Church-work. It is not to be doubted that there are those among us who do this. Make the practice general,—above all, make it universal, and how much would be saved in the fret and friction of begging that would be avoided! How abundantly all the streams of our activities would be fed! With what smoothness every wheel and pinion of our methods would run! And how our Church, able to respond to every call,—sowing, building, gathering, growing, to the glory of God, would become a power as now it cannot be!

Let us hope that the time will come when Giving will be thus systematized by all our people. But in the mean time, our needs press. Demands upon us increase. Opportunities offer. Pleadings for help, especially from innumerable points of the great West and North-West, and from the Pacific shore, come to us. How are these to be met? How but by such an awakening to the subject as not even our Centenary Year witnessed? Every minister and every believer should feel called of God and the Master to think and act in this regard as never before, that every source of revenue we have may be made productive to the largest degree possible. Every child should be educated to remember Christ and the Church, and to grow up a generous contributor in their behalf. Our Murray Fund must be completed—and increased, for, as the Board of Trustees well said in their last Report, "amidst the precarious and variable resources with which we carry on our work, the only certain and reliable basis of operations is the Murray Fund, and the efficiency of the Convention, especially in church-extension, must always be in proportion to its assured income from" this source. Our Missionary Boxes must be remembered, and every home must do its part towards making them a success. Having originated them, will it not be a shame to us if, while other churches, appropriating them from us, roll up an income of from twenty to fifty thousand dollars a year from them, we so neglect as to realize little or nothing from them? The Annual Collection required by the rules of our Convention must receive the attention and yield the returns from all our parishes which alike the necessities ​of the case and allegiance to the Convention demand. Is it creditable to us that with a roll of nine hundred and sixty-nine parishes, only one hundred and sixty-five last year gave this collection?^[1]

But why enumerate? The sole dependence of our Church is on the free-will offerings of its members. We have no despotism to ordain levies, no machinery to compel unwilling contributions. Our strength is in the loyalty, faith, earnestness and generosity of our people. If these fail, our Church fails, and as one of the organized forces of Christendom, we shall die and leave our errand unfulfilled. Are we to do so? No! my confidence in the Universalists of America bids me answer in their behalf, and, No! is the echo I hear from thousands of believing souls. Let us have the New Departure we need in this particular, then,—and that straightway, insuring the prompter, larger, more general giving we so much need. There is use for large amounts; and if the Convention had a hundred thousand dollars this very year, the whole could be wisely employed—and so employed as to gladden our hearts in the results that would follow. But the thing of most immediate importance is that all our parishes, all our ministers and people shall understand the legitimacy of these claims upon them, and put themselves into line by giving something. A recognition of our Church methods and calls, attesting thoughtfulness ​and sympathy with respect to them—this is the thing that presses now. Amounts are secondary to this. This secured, amounts will grow, and each year will render more generous returns. This, therefore, we must have.

So only can we show ourselves as a Church thoroughly appreciative of the demands that crowd upon us, or duly put ourselves into accord with that pervading Law on which the harmony and very life of the universe depend. This is the Law of Benefaction. Everywhere we find it, and obedience to it. God is the great Giver, and out of His infinite fulness the streams of His beneficence inexhaustibly flow. What would become of us if it were not so? And in its place, what does not, like Him, somehow impart? Nothing exists for itself alone. Every grain of sand is linked in unconscious brotherhood with every other, helping to hold it in place. The drops of the ocean, the rays of the sun, the leaves of the forest, everything that breathes or is, all own the necessity by which they act and re-act on each other. The ordinance of Giving thus stretches from mote to mote, from world to world, from constellation to constellation, weaving its wondrous net-work of kindly forces and binding all things in indissoluble unity to each other and to the throne of God. Nothing is too minute, nothing too vast to contribute its portion to the general good.

Behold, then, the anomaly that Selfishness is, and how everywhere God is rebuking and admonishing against it. It is shamed and outlawed by every atom and every world, by every manly impulse and every womanly sympathy, and crowning all the rest, by the great Love that never grows weary in bestowing, and by that life of unapproached sacrifice in which Christ gave himself for our sake. Where shall the selfish man, or the selfish parish find companionship or approval? Everything else owns God's ordinance, and gives as it can. But, living only as a pensioner on others' aid,—receiving, constantly, from innumerable sources, and fed, sheltered, blessed in a thousand ways, this man, this parish, while everything else is giving as well as receiving, slinks into the contracting shell of a mean selfhood, with hands out only to clutch whatever further comes in the way, ​growling, Each for himself; I do no more. Look at the man, look at the parish, standing so rebuked amidst the kindly fellowships of Nature, and in presence of God's bounty and Christ's cross, and let each take care that the rebuking angel does not point to us, saying, This is the parish, or thou art the man!