TITHING 
 A CHRISTIAN DUTY 
 
 BYTERIAN BUSINESS MEN’S CONFERENCE 
 
 REV. 0. P. GIFFORD, D. D. 
 
 us eae vows DTA MEP 
 
 The Law of the Tithe 
 
 REV. H. CLAY TRUMBULL, D. D. 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 HEBREWS VIE 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE UNITED PRES- 
 | SINGLE COPY, FIVE CENTS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 UNITED PRESBYTERIAN MEN’S MOVEMENT 
 616 WEST NORTH AVENUE 
 
 ALLEGHENY, PA. 
 
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 Auy | 
 
Tithing, a Christian Duty 
 Hebrews VII 
 
 Any system is better than no system; the 
 best system is none too good. The good is 
 evermore the enemy of the better; the 
 better is the worst enemy of the best. The 
 constant danger is, of arrested develop- 
 ment. ‘‘Remember Lot’s wife,’’ she lost 
 what she had by not going on to get what 
 she ought. Terah and Abraham started 
 together out of Ur of the Chaldees. ‘And 
 they came to Haran and dwelt there. And 
 Terah died in Haran.’’ But not until he 
 had begotten sons, many of whose de- 
 scendants are with us in Church life today, 
 men who start for the God-built city, but 
 tarry in Haran. When the Holy Spirit 
 brooded over chaos, division preceded 
 evolution, water from water, life from 
 death, low forms of life at first, then higher; 
 first monkey, then man. But why, when 
 you have come so far as the monkey, stop, 
 get a cage, open a museum, and refuse to go 
 further? What was good enough in the 
 past tense of the verb of life is not good 
 enough in the present tense. 
 
We believe in foreordination, but what is 
 the use of being foreordained if we do not 
 foreordain in turn? Man is not the end of 
 God’s plan. He seeks to work through us, 
 as well as up to us. , 
 
 SYSTEM, NOT SPASM IS GOD’S METHOD. 
 
 New Hampshire has developed two sorts 
 of Baptists, Calvinistic and Free Will. Dr. 
 A. J. Gordon’s father used to say he could 
 tell one from the other by seeing their wood 
 piles. ‘‘ Work out your own salvation with 
 fear and trembling, for it is God who 
 worketh in you to will and to do of His 
 good pleasure,’ and His good pleasure is 
 systematic in you as well as outside you. 
 The Bible is our law of life until He repeals 
 it and inspires another, and the Bible 
 teaches the best system of giving to Him. 
 
 When the tide is at flood the sea seeks and 
 fills all open bays, harbors, inlets, and 
 forces the water back up the channels of the 
 rivers. When a great truth floods the mind 
 it fills all the forms of expression and 
 moulds of thought. The mind of Christ 
 was an open sea-board to the tidal move- 
 ment of one great truth: the Kingdom of 
 God. Hesaw what was in his mind when 
 he saw a woman setting a patch on a gar- 
 ment, mixing leaven with meal, pouring 
 new wine into old wineskins: he saw the 
 Kingdom of God. When he saw a man 
 
 sh 
 
 “ 
 
lifting a net filled with fish, sowing seed by 
 the wayside, giving a feast, he saw the 
 Kingdom of God. As the sunlight glorifies 
 the windows in the church, so the great 
 truth of the Kingdom glorified the common 
 things of daily life. 
 
 After the ascention, and the gift of the 
 Holy Spirit, the Apostles began to preach, 
 but they preached the King. In Jerusalem, 
 on the day of Pentecost, in Antioch, on 
 Mars Hill, in synagogue or public square, 
 they preached the King. When a conquered 
 province swears allegiance to the king, it 
 accepts the law, institutions and will that 
 make the kingdom. When the world 
 swears allegiance to Christ as King, the 
 Kingdom has come. When the King 
 conquered Greece, Pan died. When the 
 King entered the Roman Pantheon other 
 gods fled. When Christ was accepted by 
 the Jews as Messiah, their great men faded 
 from sight as the stars fade when the sun 
 rises. 
 
 Moses was the great man in Hebrew 
 thought. As Pharoah’s daughter lifted the 
 babe from the Nile and gave him to 
 Egyptian culture, so Moses lifted Israel 
 from slavery, and gave them to liberty. 
 Moses gave the law, religion, literature to 
 Israel. But Moses was only a servant, 
 Christ was the son: “the servant abideth 
 not forever, the son abideth ever.’’ Side by 
 
 3 
 
side with Moses stood Aaron the high 
 priest, but Christ was High Priest forever 
 after the power of an endless life, of the 
 tribe of Judah. Back of Moses and Aaron 
 stood Abraham. Back of the Niagara river 
 is Lake Erie, but back of Erie the lake 
 system and the drainage of the great 
 Northwest. Back of Moses and Aaron was 
 Abraham, the friend of God, the father of 
 the children of Israel. ‘‘ The law came by 
 Moses,”’ but lifecame from Abraham. The 
 Hebrew’s highest boast was ‘‘Abraham is 
 my father;’’ his fondest hope to rest in 
 Abraham’s bosom. 
 
 ABRAHAM LIVED BY FAITH. 
 
 The law bracketed the national life for a 
 time, but true life is by faith. 
 
 Abraham and Lot got along nicely 
 together so long as they were poor. Riches 
 divide. Two poor men can live in one 
 room. Each rich man wants a suite of 
 rooms, and if heis very rich a whole house 
 to himself. Wealth is centrifugal, poverty 
 centripetal. Money pushes men apart, pov- 
 erty binds them together. Abraham gave 
 Lot the first choice. Once at least in the 
 light of history, the senior partner gave the 
 junior partner the first choice. Lot chose 
 foolishly, thinking only of a pasturage for 
 his flocks, and a market for his fleece and 
 mutton. He was attacked, carried away 
 
 4 
 
into captivity, bankrupted. Abraham came 
 to his rescue, saved Lot and spoiled the 
 kings. On his way back to Hebron he 
 passed Jerusalem. There he met his master, 
 Melchisedek, ‘‘Priest of the Most High 
 God.’”’ The Jews emphasize ancestry, think 
 much of heredity. Our family trees com- 
 pared with theirs are as bushes to banyan 
 
 trees, gourds as to century oaks. Our 
 Daughters of the Revolution, or De- 
 
 scendants of the Pilgrims, are children com- 
 pared to centenarians. We drink filtered 
 water, the Jews boast of filtered blood, 
 rich and clear through the centuries. But 
 Melchisedek had no coat of arms, no 
 ancestry, no heredity; ‘‘ Without beginning 
 of years or ending of days, a priest forever.”’ 
 Yet Abraham paid tithes to him. ‘Christ 
 is a priest forever after the order of 
 Melchisedek.”” He is not in the line of 
 Aaron, of the tribe of Levi, but of the tribe 
 of Judah, after the order of Melchisedek. 
 “Here men that die receive tithes, but there 
 he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed 
 that he liveth.”’ 
 
 WE BELIEVE THAT THE EPISTLE TO THE 
 HEBREWS WAS WRITTEN BY INSPIRATION, 
 AND THE HOLY SPIRIT PUTS THE TITHE ON 
 THE GROUND THAT CHRIST IS OUR HIGH 
 PRIEST, NOT AFTER THE ORDER OF AARON, 
 BUT OF MELCHISEDEK, GROUNDING IT, NOT 
 IN THE LAW, BUT IN THE LIFE OF FAITH. 
 
 5 
 
Ever and again I meet a man who rebels 
 against the tithe because it was part of a 
 legal system; who says, ‘‘I am not under 
 law.’’ That is just the trouble with a large 
 criminal class in the United States today, 
 some poor, some rich, they are not under 
 law. Do not, I pray you, class yourselves 
 with such, lest a policeman put you where 
 you can break law in thought, but not in 
 act! When the Roman soldier found that 
 Paul was a Roman he said “‘ At great price 
 got I this liberty.’’ Liberty to do what? 
 Obey law. And Paul said, “I was free- 
 born.”’ Free to do what? 
 
 FREEDOM IS THE FRUIT OF LAW, 
 
 and carries in its heart a seed that builds a 
 new body in conformity with law. The 
 trouble is that there are altogether too 
 many members of our churches who are 
 not under law, who mistake liberty for 
 license, who feel no sense of obligation to 
 perform duty. ‘here is not a tree of the 
 forest, a bird of the air, a fish in the sea, 
 not under law. The Christian is under the 
 law of life in Christ Jesus, and Christ is our 
 High Priest, and we owe Him a tithe of 
 our possessions. Do not mistake. 
 
 LAW DOES NOT CREATE DUTIES, LAW RECOG- 
 NIZES DUTIES, REGULATES DUTIES, 
 ENFORCES DUTIES. 
 
 Duties grow out of the nature of things. 
 6 
 
To be, is to bein relation; to be in relation 
 is to have duties, and law recognizes duties 
 and seeks to regulate relations. When 
 Robinson Crusoe was alone on the island he 
 had no duties to his fellows, except to keep 
 himself‘ so that when fellows might come 
 he could bless and not curse. When he 
 found Friday, relations commenced, duties 
 began. He was under the law to recognize 
 relations, and do duties. Laws passed at 
 Harrisburg or Washington that are not 
 based on the nature of things sink into 
 innocuous desuetude, are neglected or re- 
 placed. The law given by Moses, endures 
 because it deals with relations that are real, 
 and enforces duties that are natural. 
 
 The law of Moses, did not create 
 relations, nor duties. “Thou shalt not 
 commit adultery.”’ Was it right to com- 
 mit adultery before Moses gave the law? 
 Is it right for those who never heard the 
 law? Are you under the law ? Vegetable 
 and animal life depend upon _ water. 
 Water is formed of two gases, hydrogen 
 and oxygen. To divorce these is to destroy 
 life. The State depends for its stability up- 
 on the family. The destruction of the 
 family is the disintegration of the State. 
 Adultery destroys the family and the State, 
 poisons the stream of national life at its 
 source, reverses the miracle of Elisha with 
 the fount of Jericho and kills. An adulter- 
 
 + 
 / 
 
ous family is a doomed state. The law 
 simply states a principle, enforces a duty, 
 creates neither. 
 
 “Thou shalt not kill.” That was not 
 made a crime by stating alaw. Cain wasa 
 criminal long before Moses was born. You 
 cannot cut the threads and preserve the 
 web. You cannot keep the State and 
 murder the citizens. Family life must be 
 pure, and individual life sacred. ‘‘Thou 
 shalt not steal.”’ Property rights must be 
 respected or there can be no trade, and 
 without trade there can be no civilization. 
 Men will not produce unless they can pre- 
 serve. Peril to property breeds improvi- 
 dence. Theft does not become a crime 
 when law forbids it, it is recognized as a 
 crime by law. 
 
 “Thou shalt not bear false witness 
 against thy neighbor.’’ ‘“‘A good name is 
 rather to be chosen than great riches,”’ but 
 you must not choose your neighbor’s good 
 name. 
 
 “Good name, in man or woman, dear my 
 lord, 
 
 Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 
 
 Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis 
 something, nothing; 
 
 ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to 
 thousands, 
 
 But he that filches from me my good name, 
 
 Robs me of that which not enriches him, 
 
 And makes me poor indeed.”’ 
 
 8 
 
The stealer of money can be caught and 
 restitution made, but who shall catch and 
 secure restitution of a good name filched ? 
 Money I can earn again, but where a good 
 name? But slander was not made a crime 
 by the law, 
 
 “Thou shalt not covet.’’ For that spirit 
 wrongs the man who sins more than to 
 steal. I am no poorer because you covet 
 my estate, and you are no richer, but 
 covetousness hath eaten out your soul 
 like moth in garment, and the treasure you 
 have is lost. You cannot enjoy what you 
 have while you covet what I have. Covet- 
 ousness is soul suicide. It was just as silly 
 and wrong before Moses spoke as after. So 
 of all the law. 
 
 THE LAW DOES NOT MAKE THE ROAD, ANY 
 MORE THAN THE GUIDE BOARD DOES, BUT 
 IT DOES TELL WHERE TO GO, AND WHERE 
 NOT. 
 
 The law accepted the tithe, did not create 
 it, wove it into the web of national life. If 
 you refuse to tithe because Moses com- 
 manded Israel to tithe, then be-logical and 
 see how long the modern State will respect 
 your position. The fact that so wise a man 
 as Moses embodied the tithe in his system 
 commends it to me. He was not of the 
 kind that can see no good except he has 
 created it, and cares more for freedom than 
 
 for success. 
 9 
 
The prophet enforces the tithe. 
 
 MALACHI INSISTS THAT MEN WHO DO NOT 
 PAY TITHES DO STEAL; THAT MEN:WHO 
 ARE ABOVE OBEDIENCE TO LAW ARE BELOW 
 THE LEVEL OF HONEST MEN. 
 
 Christ commends the tithe. Abraham 
 gave tithes; Moses commanded tithing; 
 Christ commended tithing. What Christ 
 commends is my command. He looked into 
 the face of the scribes and Pharisees and 
 said, ‘‘Ye pay tithes of mint, and anise 
 and cummin, and have omitted the 
 weightier matters of the law, judgment, 
 mercy, and faith; these ought ye to have 
 done, and not to leave the other undone.”' 
 The Pharisees had no right to compromise 
 with duties, to do one set and leave the 
 other set undone. We are in danger of 
 moral bankruptcy, of seeking to compro- 
 mise with God for fifty per cent. We should 
 not commend the man who tithes and 
 omits the weightier matters, nor the man 
 who attends to the weightier matters and 
 omits the tithe. Both are commanded. 
 The earth yields crops of two sorts, root 
 and topcrops. We eat the roots and reject 
 the tops, or eat the tops and reject the 
 roots. No one cares for the top of a turnip, 
 nor the roots of acabbage. But in dealing 
 with the duties that grow in the garden of 
 the Lord there is no such division. He who 
 
 10 
 
breaks the least commandment is guilty of 
 the whole. You must lock doors and bar 
 windows if you would sleep safely. You 
 must tithe and obey the weightier matters 
 of the law if you would please the law 
 giver. You do not win the right to steal by 
 keeping the Sabbath, nor the right to break 
 the Sabbath by paying your debts. 
 
 OBEDIENCE TO THE TITHE IS AS MUCH A 
 PART OF RELIGION AS JUDGMENT, MERCY 
 AND FAITH. 
 
 The divorce court threatens the stability 
 of the State. Divorced duties threaten the 
 Church. ‘What God hath joined together 
 let no man put asunder,” in marriage or 
 morals. Immorality lies not so much in 
 the thing done, as in the motive for doing 
 it. To dodge any duty is to reveal a wrong 
 spirit, and no man knows what will follow 
 when the spirit is wrong. Ye ought to 
 worship God, ye ought to pay your debts, 
 and the tithe is your debt to God. Ye 
 ought to observe the ritual of religion, ye 
 ought to be honest and righteous. Do not 
 make your conscience a South Dakota 
 where duties are divorced. 
 
 But some one says, “‘ Christ was talking 
 to Pharisees; his words have no bearing on 
 my case.’’ If these words of Christ have no 
 bearing on you, then no words of Christ 
 are anything to you. All his teachings 
 
 11 
 
were to the Jews, all his promises to met 
 we never saw. 
 
 IF YOU ARE GOING TO LIMIT THE APPLICA- 
 TION OF HIS WORDS TO THE MEN HE 
 SPOKE TO, YOU HAVE EVAPORATED THE 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s 
 Prayer, the promises of eternal life, the 
 pledge of the resurrection, fall like snow 
 flakes on a desert and are absorbed. 
 
 CHRIST TAUGHT PRINCIPLES TO AND 
 THROUGH MEN 
 
 as the sun shines through these memorial 
 windows and lifts the room out of dark- 
 ness. Your attitude is the most dangerous 
 and meanest form of higher criticism. We 
 can handle unbeliever’s higher criticism, but 
 the practical atheism of professed Chris- 
 tians is the Judas kiss by Gethsemane. We 
 flee from it and leave the Master in the 
 hands of enemies, with the cross in sight. 
 If Christians obey what Christ commands, 
 the Church can defy the attacks of enemies. 
 Achan in the army, was mightier than the 
 men of Ai when Joshua tried to force the 
 pass. 
 
 TITHING IS SCIENTIFIC, IT PAYS WHEN 
 TRIED, IN THE BUSINESS LIFE. 
 
 Dr. Chadwick, of Leets, England, tells us 
 12 
 
his experience in dealing with men. There 
 were two members of his church who were 
 poor; they formed a company to do busi- 
 ness together; both were Christians. John 
 said to Thomas and Thomas said to John: 
 “Now we will give a certain per cent. of our 
 profits to the Lord.” The first year the 
 per cent. was small because the profits were 
 small; it needed no great effort to give one 
 cent out of ten cents, or ten cents out of a 
 dollar; or one hundred out of a thousand, 
 but when it came to ten thousand dollars 
 out of a hundred thousand, they felt the 
 pinch. The tide of prosperity rolled in; the 
 second, the third and fourth years they kept 
 their vow to God; the fifth year they said 
 they were giving too much, they would give 
 half as much hereafter; they divided their 
 tenth into half, gave one-half and kept the 
 other half themselves. That year they did 
 not make a payment; in the second six 
 months they were bankrupt. They went to 
 the prayer room and side by side they knelt 
 and vowed to redeem their vow to the 
 living God. They found that the tide 
 turned to prosperity again. 
 
 But you say, “That is bribing God.” Is 
 it? 
 
 CAN YOU BRIBE GOD? 
 
 A bribe means a man to buy, and a man 
 to be bought. Can the God you worship be 
 bribed? Then you had better change Gods. 
 
 13 
 
Tithing is one condition of material pros- 
 perity. Nine-tenths with God, will go 
 further and do more than ten-tenths with" 
 out Him. If it is wrong to succeed, why 
 try? Ifitis right, why not try all ways? 
 Is it bribing God to be industrious, eco- 
 nomical, honest? Isit bribing God to pray 
 for success? Then why is it bribing God to 
 tithe when He has commanded that as 
 truly as economy, honesty, prayer? The 
 underlying fallacy of our daily life is, 
 that certain hours belong to God, and the 
 rest to us, certain duties belong to God, and 
 the rest to us. ‘‘Seek ye first the kingdom 
 of God and His righteousness,”’ always first 
 in time and in interest. 
 
 IT 18 NOT BRIBING THE GOVERNMENT’TO PAY 
 YOUR TAXES. IT IS NOT BRIBING GOD TO 
 PAY YOUR) TITHE. 
 
 You do not give a tithe, you pay a tithe. 
 You do not give until you have paid the 
 tithe. Free-will offerings come later, 
 through the open door of the tithe. You 
 do not give God the Sabbath. He claims it. 
 If vou wish to give him time out of the 
 other six days, that is a gift. So of the 
 tithe; it is God’s part of your prosperity. 
 “As the Lord prospers.” But this was 
 written to men who had been bred to tith- 
 ing in Judaism and heathenism. The pro- 
 portion had been set as a mould, the time 
 
 14 
 
to pour in the money was declared to be the 
 first day of the week for Christians. The 
 doing of this duty, as of all moral duties 
 has closest bearing on moral character, and 
 so on prosperity. 
 
 PAYING THE TITHE TO GOD, MAKES HIM A 
 SILENT PARTNER IN YOUR BUSINESS, AND 
 THUS SANCTIFIES YOUR WHOLE BUSINESS 
 LIFE. THIS TITHE THAT IS DUE IS NOT 
 THE MAXIMUM, BUT THE MINIMUM; THE 
 CENTER OF THE CIRCLE NOT THE CIRCUM- 
 FERENCE; BUT THE MAN WHO HAS A 
 CENTER IS PRETTY APT TO HAVE A 
 CIRCUMFERENCE. 
 
 Marshall Field paid his taxes like an 
 honest man; he gave largely afterward. 
 Tax dodgers are not large givers. 
 
 Because you keep the Sabbath, you are 
 not at liberty to serve the devil the other 
 six days. They are given to you for the 
 doing of your own work, not the devil’s 
 work. Through the open window of the 
 Sabbath the light of the uplifted counte- 
 nance floods the other six days. Through 
 the tithe God smiles upon the nine-tenths. 
 You know it pays to keep the Sabbath 
 holy. You do not bribe God by obedience, 
 yet He blesses all days because of obedience. 
 _ It is not bribing God to pay the tithe, yet 
 He blesses the nine-tenths because you pay 
 your debt. 
 
 15 
 
YOU DESPISE A MAN WHO IS DISHONEST WITH 
 HIS FELLOWS. WHY HONOR THE MAN 
 WHO IS DISHONEST WITH GOD? 
 
 The blessing of God rests upon certain 
 old fashioned virtues. The man who 
 practices them is not attempting to bribe 
 God. Honesty with God is quite as com- 
 mendable as honesty with men. Do not 
 pat yourself on the back when you pay 
 your tax to the State, nor boast when you 
 pay your tithe to God. ‘This ought ye to 
 have done.’”’? And God blesses the man who 
 does what he ought, but the blessing comes 
 not from a bribed God. 
 
 Dr. Chadwick told of a poor woman who 
 had a small income; she owned a little 
 house; for it she received ten shillings a 
 week. Every Saturday night she placed 
 the ten shillings side by side on the table. 
 You know an English shilling is worth 
 twenty-five cents. She took out the. 
 shiniest one of the lot; she lived on the nine. 
 Her pastor said: ‘‘You are giving too 
 much.’’ She replied: ‘‘The dear Lord can 
 make a penny do for two when I pay what 
 ITowe Him.’ I would rather live on nine 
 shillings with God than on one hundred 
 dollars without Him. 
 
 He had another member of his church, a 
 most devout, pious member, a washer- 
 woman; she said to her pastor: ‘I am 
 giving all I can; I wash four days in the 
 
 16 
 
week; I earn two dollars; I cannot spare 
 any more.” A little later she came with 
 radiant face and said: ‘‘A woman has en- 
 gaged me to wash Fridays; what I earn in 
 my Friday wash, I give to God. That is 
 the happiest day in the week.’’ She was 
 working five days, one day she gave her 
 work to God. 
 
 MONEY IS OF NO YALUE EXCEPT AS IT CAN 
 MEET NEEDS. THE BEST USE BRINGS MOST 
 HAPPINESS. 
 
 A happy man can do more and better 
 work, It pays to tithe in terms of money 
 and happiness. 
 
 Il. It pays in spiritual power. Malachi 
 promises (3:10) that Jehovah will open the 
 windows of heaven and pour out an un- 
 measured blessing, when the tithe is 
 brought in. The spring to the window of 
 heaven is in the pocket of the worshipper. 
 We grope for the spring with hands of 
 prayer. Reach down, not up. Listen toa 
 parable. I have a little box in the safety 
 deposit vault, in the box a few savings, in 
 my pocket the key. One day I went down 
 to the vault, the keeper opened the door to 
 me, walked to the box with me. I fell on 
 my knees, and began to plead with the 
 keeper to open the box. He said, ‘‘Isu’t the 
 key in your pocket ?”’ I sprang to my feet, 
 handed him the key, he opened the box. 
 
 17 
 
The Church is on its knees before God, beg- 
 ging Him to open the windows of heaven, 
 to pour out a blessing; she pleads, she 
 agonizes, she begs, and the voice of God 
 asks, ‘‘Isn’t the key in your pocket?” 
 “ Bring the whole tithe iato the storehouse, 
 and try me now herewith saith the Lord of 
 hosts, if I will not open the windows of 
 heaven, and pour you out a blessing till 
 there shall not be room to receive it.” 
 Ours is a scientific age. ‘‘Prove me now 
 herewith saith the Lord of hosts.’’ 
 
 Nitrogen, they tell us, is a substance that 
 builds up the human body. We find it in 
 air. It enters the human body along the 
 line of animal and vegetable life. Man 
 finds that vegetable life exhausts the soil. 
 Prophets tell us that when the earth 
 becomes bankrupt humanity wi'l starve. 
 Farmers tell us that rotation of crops re- 
 imburses the soil: certain kinds of plants 
 overdraw the bank account of nitrogen in 
 the soil; other kinds deposit more than 
 they take out. Peas, beans, clover and 
 alfalfa draw nitrogen from the air and leave 
 in the soil more than they use. Wheat, 
 oats, barley and rye draw out more nitro- 
 gen for their own use than they deposit in 
 the soil. So the farmer sows seeds that de- 
 posit a new bank account; they draw down 
 nitrogen into the soil and he keeps on in 
 business. 
 
 18 
 
How can we get more nitrogen into the 
 soil? Seven-tenths of the air is nitrogen. 
 The earth lies on the threshold of the air, 
 like Lazarus on the threshold of Dives’ 
 palace: he cries for nitrogen while Dives is 
 overloaded. The earth begs for nitrogen. 
 How can we get the nitrogen from the air, 
 then put it down into the earth to build 
 crops? This is the great problem of 
 agriculture. 
 
 Many years ago a German experimented 
 and learned some things: he analyzed the 
 soil and found under the microscope that 
 certain plants contain microscopical bac- 
 teria full of nitrogen; the little fellows pick 
 the pocket of the air and deposit the nitro- 
 gen in the earth. Nitrogen is piled up 
 around the roots of certain forms of plant 
 life that it loves. On the roots of peas, 
 beans, alfalfa and clover are little globules 
 that reach up and bring the nitrogen down. 
 Then with clover, peas, beans and alfalfa 
 we enrich the soil, because nitrogen loves 
 the roots of this kind of plant. These 
 Germans studied the little bunches, cut 
 them open and analyzed them. They found 
 them full of little bacteria. They had 
 secured a key to free nitrogen, their check 
 
 was endorsed on the back by the air, they 
 had an endless bank account, with the air 
 above to enrich the poverty below. But 
 they broke down; they could not make 
 nitrogen commercially valuable. 
 
 19 
 
Prof. Moore, of Washington, took up the 
 discovery where the Germans broke down; 
 he carried on the experiment until today the 
 United States’ Agricultural Department 
 prepares nitrogen in the form of a yeast 
 cake; it is dissolved in water, seeds are 
 soaked in it; a solution plowed into the 
 soil increases the crop forty to four hundred 
 per cent. You tell me that when a farmer 
 dissolves nitrogen bacteria in water, soaks 
 his seed in it, plants his seed to increase his 
 crop four hundred per cent,, that he has 
 bribed the air? He has simply mastered 
 the secret of how to enrich the soil. 
 
 IN GOD WE LIVE AND MOVE AND 
 HAVE OUR BEING; THE BUILDING 
 STUFF THAT MAKES ETERNAL LIFE 
 IS LARGE IN GOD; THE BUILDING 
 STUFF THAT MAKES ETERNAL LIFE 
 IS SMALL IN MAN. HOW CAN WE 
 REACH UP AND GET ETERNAL LIFE 
 AND BRING IT DOWN TO MEET OUR 
 NEED? 
 
 Pray? Yes. Search the Scriptures? Yes. 
 Is that bribing God? Tithe? Yes. Bring 
 home the tithes in the storehouse and prove 
 the Lord if He will not open the windows 
 of heaven and pour out a blessing such that 
 there shall not be room to contain it. 
 
 Is it bribing to live according to known 
 law? 
 
 Is it bribing favor to obey discovered 
 
 20 
 
law? Then never pray again; never read 
 the Scriptures again; never try to do a 
 righteous act again. The channels through 
 which the power of spiritual life flows out 
 are the channels of prayer and the channels 
 of the tithe. 
 
 Is it a bribe to open the channels of 
 spiritual life by prayer? It is no bribe. 
 Paying the tithe is no bribe; it is paying 
 a debt. You may pray and read and sing 
 and agonize and toil, but unless you meet 
 all the requirements you cannot get the free 
 nitrogen of the eternal God to build perfect 
 character. 
 
 If it is wrong to prosper in business, do 
 not try to; if it is right try every right 
 means. If it is wrong to prosper in 
 spiritual life, quit praying and struggling 
 and trying to develop Christian character; 
 if it is right, try every right means. In 
 your business, when you started you used 
 common sense. Use common sense in the 
 spiritual life, try every experiment, test 
 every law, bend every energy. Be as 
 scientific as in any form of life God has 
 given man. 
 
 CHRIST IS THE HIGH PRIEST OF 
 OUR CONFESSION. WE COME TROOP- 
 ING UP FROM THE VALLEV, AFTER 
 THE STRUGGLE, WITH OUR SPOILS. 
 LET US LAY THE TITHE OF OUR 
 POSSESSIONS AT THE FEET OF THE 
 
 21 
 
HIGH PRIEST OF OUR CONFESSION 
 AND HE WILL BLESS US IN OUR 
 BUSINESS AND IN OUR SPIRITUAL 
 LIFE. 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Reckoning the Tithe 
 
 We assume that you have reached the 
 point where you believe the tithe or tenth of 
 your income belongs to God, that the tithe 
 is not a gift, but answering a claim. One 
 seventh of the time, one tenth of the 
 property. The Sabbath is not to be used 
 for personal gain, the tithe is not to be 
 spent by you on yourself. Day and money, 
 time and tithe belong to God. 
 
 When Abramam paid tithes to Melchise- 
 dek, he gave one tenth of a// the spoils. He 
 did not reckon the cost of equipping his 
 army, the cost of the campaign, did not de- 
 duct any amount from the whole treasure. 
 
 When Jacob made his vow to Jehovah on 
 Bethel, he said, ‘‘ Of al/ that thou shalt give 
 me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” 
 There is no hint of counting out the cost of 
 getting. If you cut a loaf into ten parts 
 and give one part, you do not count the 
 cost of flour, yeast, labor, heat, before cut- 
 ting the tithe slice. If a man furnishes 
 capital, on condition that he receive a tithe 
 of all that comes to you, he must have one 
 tenth as much as youdo of all that comesin. 
 
 22 
 
In the matter of salary the division is 
 easy, one dollar in ten, taken out of the en- 
 tire sum, before personal expenses are 
 reckoned. ‘ 
 
 With the farmer, one tenth of the grain 
 when reaped, of the cattle when sold, of the 
 fruit when gathered, and one tenth of the 
 money received in the market. For the 
 farmer has had his shelter and board and 
 warmth off the farm while working it. He 
 is a fixed charge, and has taken cost of pro- 
 duction out as he goes along, the cost of 
 horses and oxen and care of help has come 
 out of the farm as he works men and 
 animals. 
 
 If in business, the net that remains after 
 rent, interest on money, Salaries of help, 
 but not personal expenses. If a partner 
 shares in the gross receipts, he must also 
 share in the expenses. If you tithe the 
 gross then take out the tithe of expenses. 
 Or the tithe might be reckoned one of the 
 fixed charges, as taxes are, to come out of 
 the gross amount, reckoned with insurance. 
 “Let a man be fully persuaded in his own 
 
 mind.’’ “If any man lack wisdom let him 
 ask of God, who giveth unto men liber- 
 ally aud npbraideth not.’’—If a man seek 
 
 first the kingdom of God, and His 
 righteousness, all other things shall be 
 added, and among the additions will be 
 additions of wisdom to settle detail. 
 
 23 
 
The Law of the Tithe 
 
 BY THE LATE H. CLAY TRUMBULL, D. D. 
 
 There are some duties which the Bible 
 seems to recognize as understood from the 
 beginning. There is no mention of their 
 origin and first announcement. Their 
 violation, or their performance is 
 mentioned incidently in the sacred story 
 long before they are recorded as specifically 
 enjoined. It appears to be taken for 
 granted that they were known to be duties 
 at man’s very start in the world. 
 
 There is no record, for instance, of any 
 law against murder until after the Deluge; 
 but Cain was not exculpated from guilt on 
 the ground that he had never been told not 
 
 to kill his brother. There is no command | 
 
 to prayer-—either public or private prayer— 
 in any of the earlier books of the Bible. 
 but most of the patriarchs whose story is 
 elaborated are represented as in the habit of 
 prayer. And although the duty of praying 
 is not specifically enjoined in the Ten Com- 
 mandments, it was and is recognized as of 
 universal obligation. The duty of tithe- 
 giving—of giving one tenth of one’s entire 
 
 24 
 
income to the Lord—is one of these duties 
 which seems to have needed the record of 
 no original announcement or injunction. 
 Like prayer, tithe-giving was practiced by 
 the patriarchs long before the proclamation 
 of the Mosaiclaw. While as in the case of 
 prayer, it finds no specific mention in the 
 Decalogue, tithe-giving has had, and it has, 
 a widespread recognition in the world--a 
 recognition that would be as nearly uni- 
 versal as that given to prayer, if it were 
 not that it costs so much more. 
 
 The first Bible mention of tithes is in the 
 fourteenth chapter of Genesis, where Abram 
 returning from the slaughter of the kings, 
 was met by Melchisedek, ‘‘a priest of the 
 most high God,”’ and he gave him tithes of 
 all the spoils. It does not appear by the 
 record that that act on Abram’s part was 
 something unlike anything ever done before. 
 On the contrary, it appears to have been 
 the spontaneous performance of a most 
 seemly and fitting act—the performance 
 indeed of a plain duty; for Abram did not 
 count those particular spoils of battle his 
 own; he looked at them as _ properly 
 belonging to the king of Sodom; but 
 whosesoever they were, one tenth of them 
 belonged to the Lord and must be handed 
 to the Lord’s representative. -_He de- 
 livered the spoils of battle to their right- 
 ful owner—with the ‘‘Government tax 
 
 25 
 
paid.” The duty of tithe-giving would, 
 therefore, seem to rest on the common law 
 of God's kingdom, rather than on any 
 specific statutory requirement. 
 
 Yet there is no lack in the Bible of specific 
 commands for tithe-giving, or of explicit 
 commendation for the performance of this 
 duty, and the denunciations of those who 
 neglect it. We haye found this duty 
 recognized in the first book of the Old 
 Testament. Later we find specific and re- 
 peated commands for its continued exercise. 
 In the last book of the Old Testament, we 
 find its neglect denounced of God as 
 nothing short of robbery. ‘‘ Will a man 
 rob God?” he asks. Is there a man bad 
 enough to deliberately steal from God? 
 That is God’s question; and his answer to 
 itis: ‘Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, 
 wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes 
 and offerings.’’ In other words, if any of 
 you profess to be the Lord’s children and 
 have failed to pay over to the Lord his tenth’ 
 of your income, you are thieves; that is the 
 plain English of the Bible teaching on this 
 subject. 
 
 It is all very well for a disciple of Christ 
 to affirm that he is no longer bound by the 
 letter of the law on either of these points, 
 if he unmistakably lives up to the spirit 
 of that law. If he really counts and 
 uses every day, and all his income, as the 
 
 26 
 
Lord’s, a Christian man need not be 
 particular to bring either his religious giv- 
 ing down to the exact one-tenth of his in- 
 come, or his religious rest and worship 
 down to the exact one-seventh of the week. 
 But if he means to use his Christian 
 liberty to excuse him from giving as large a 
 share of his time and income to the Lord as 
 the Jewish law, and as God’s common law 
 of all ages, required from a man, then he is 
 not only what God calls a robber, but a 
 robber under the cloak of Christianity—a 
 hypocritical robber. The widow who cast 
 in ‘‘all her living’’ to the temple treasury | 
 was excusable for not stopping to be partic- 
 ular about tithes. But she, by the way, had 
 doubtless paid her tithes before she made 
 that offering. So might any man be thus 
 excusable who was sure he never gave less 
 than a quarter of his income into the Lord’s 
 treasury. Just here let it be said that when 
 we speak of giving into the Lord’s treasury 
 in these days we mean giving at the Lord’s 
 call to causes which the Lord approves as 
 his own —whether through strictly religious 
 channels or in lines of private beneficence. 
 Of course the support of one’s family, or the 
 giving to anyone who is properly dependent 
 on us for support, is not such giving to the 
 Lord. The Jews never counted the cost of 
 their personal or family sacrifices at the 
 temple as a part of their tithe-giving. 
 
 o7 
 
 “ 
 
The Jews, again, never counted their 
 alms-giving as a part of their tithe-paying, 
 yet alms-giving was always a sacred duty 
 with the Jews. Their alms-giving could not 
 begin until their tithes were already pro- 
 vided for. Their charities must be out of 
 the nine-tenths of their income—not out of 
 ’ the Lord’s one-tenth. Who then supposes 
 that the New Testament commands to give 
 systematically and freely were intended or 
 were understood as covering in all less than 
 the very lowest limits of Jewish and 
 heathen religious giving? It is an absurd- 
 ity to suggest such a thought. ‘Freely ye 
 have received, freely give.’’ ‘‘Sell that ye 
 have, and give alms.”’ “Upon the first day 
 of the week let everyone of you lay by him 
 in store, as God hath prospered him.”’ 
 “Every man according as he purposeth in 
 his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, 
 or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful 
 giver.”’ ‘‘Remember the words of the Lord 
 Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to | 
 give than to receive.’ ‘‘If, therefore, ye 
 have not been faithful in the unrighteous 
 mammon, who will commit to your trust 
 the true riches?’’ Let a man read over these 
 and many like injunctions from the New 
 Testament, in the light of the Old Testa- 
 ment record, and then say, if he can, that a 
 Christian can have common honesty before 
 God while not giving at least one-tenth of 
 
 28 
 
his income to the Lord’s cause. 
 
 “‘But all that we have and are, are the 
 Lord’s,”’ says one. ‘‘How, then, can it be 
 said that we are bound to give one-tenth 
 any more than two-tenths to the Lord? 
 We are Christian stewards, in the use of all 
 that is committed to us.’’ No, that is not 
 a fair stating of the case. The Christian 
 stewardship applies only to the nine-tenths 
 of that which comes to us as our income. 
 The one-tenth is not given to us for such 
 use as we see fit to make of it. That is the 
 Lord’s from the beginning. It is, in fact, 
 the basket in which the Lord sends to us 
 the nine-tenths which he commits to our 
 keeping. If we do not hand that right 
 back to him, we steal his basket. Could 
 anything be meaner than that? Yet here 
 are men and women—members of Chris- 
 tian churches— who have been storing up 
 those stolen baskets for years, counting 
 them in their inventory, and pointing to 
 them triumphantly as showing how bounti- 
 fully the Lord has blessed them. “ Will a 
 man rob God?” Sure enough — will he? 
 
 “But,’’ says another, ‘‘I have debts to 
 pay and myincome must be devoted to that 
 before it can fairly be available for the 
 charities. I ought to be just before I am 
 generous.’’ Of course your creditors havea 
 prior claim to strangers on your income. 
 And of course you ought to be just. But 
 
 29 
 
are all your other creditors to be preferred 
 above the Lord? Is there any injustice in 
 your ignoring His fair claim upon you? 
 One of the meanest things that any business 
 man can be capable of is the dividing 
 up his assets without a share to his en- 
 dorser. If you refuse to pay over the first 
 tenth of your income to the Lord as a pre- 
 ferred creditor, you do a meaner thing than 
 the man who delibertly swindles his en- 
 dorser. The tithe of one’s income to the 
 Lord is not a charity: it is one’s first and 
 most pressing debt—a debt of honor; a 
 sacred and supreme obligation; an obliga- 
 tion resting on each and every Christian 
 believer. The tithe is not the outermost 
 limit of a believer's duty in religious giving; 
 but it is the innermost limit. Many a 
 Christian ought to give far more than this; 
 never one ought to give less—less than one- 
 tenth of his actual income, whether that in- 
 come be little or much. 
 
 In recognizing the duty of tithe-giving 
 when one’s income is limited and one’s 
 personal and family needs are great, it is 
 essential to recognize the supernatural 
 element in God’s providential care of his 
 children. If a Christian man has an income 
 large enough to supply all his needs with- 
 out difficulty, there is neither shadow of 
 excuse nor show of decency in his failure to 
 pay over one-tenth of it to the Lord. But 
 
 30 
 
when one feels the pinch of poverty every 
 day of his life, then it is important that he 
 should bear in mind that 9 cents will go 
 farther than 10 cents would go and that 
 $9 will go farther than $10 would go in 
 providing for himself and his loved ones, 
 when that other cent or that other dollar 
 has been paid to the Lord who claims it as 
 His own. There is no mistake about this 
 to him who has faith. Every child of God 
 who has rested on this truth has found it to 
 be a source of unfailing dependence. Only 
 those disbelieve it who have never trusted 
 God enough to try it even as an experiment. 
 It is with individuals as it is with churches 
 in this matter. Neither their troubles nor 
 their doubts ever come from their giving 
 too freely of their substance to the Lord. 
 The old colored preacher had the right idea 
 about this when he said: “I hab nebber 
 known a church killed by too much gibbing 
 to de Lord. If dere should be such a 
 church, and I should like to know about it, 
 I tell you what I’ddo. I’d go down to dat 
 church dis berry night, and I’d clamber up 
 its moss-cobered roof, and I’d sit straddle 
 of its ridge pole, and I’d cry aloud, ‘ Blessed 
 are de dead which die in de Lord.’”” Dying 
 for duty-doing—starving to death for tithe- 
 giving to the Lord—is a good way of dying; 
 but there is less danger of death in that line 
 than in any other that the writer knows of. 
 
 31 
 
It was twenty-three centuries ago that 
 God said to some of His children who had 
 doubts on this point: “‘ Bring all the tithes 
 into the store house that there may be meat 
 in mine house and 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.’’ And it was twenty-six centuries ago 
 that an experiment of this was fairly made 
 among God’s people. As a result of it, the 
 tithes lay in great heaps, beyond the ability 
 of the Lord’s priests to make use of them. 
 ““Then Hezekiah questioned with the priests 
 and the Levites concerning the heaps. And 
 Azariah, the chief priest of the house of 
 Zadok, answered him, and said, Since the 
 people began to bring offerings into the 
 house of the Lord, we have had enough to 
 eat, and have left plenty: for the Lord hath 
 blessed his people: and that which is left is 
 this great store.”’ 
 
 Today, if all the Lord’s people would 
 bring in their tithes to the Lord’s treasury, 
 the money would lie in heaps waiting for 
 new machinery to put it into motion. 
 What do you think is the prospect of such 
 a financial freshet in the religious channels 
 of beneficence? Are YOU doing your share 
 to bring it about ? 
 
VALUABLE LITERATURE 
 
 which every man in the United Presbyterian 
 Church should have. 
 
 1. The Men’s Record, the Official 
 Organ of the United Presbyterian 
 Men’s Movement. Published monthly. 
 Subscription only 25c a.year. No man can 
 possibly keep abreast of this movement without 
 . The Men’s Record. Every man in your 
 church should receive it regularly. It will be 
 enlarged without advancing the price, as the 
 subscription list grows. 
 
 2. Constitution and Manual of the Men’s 
 League of the United Presbyterian Church, in- 
 cluding suggestions for each Department of 
 Service; 32 page Booklet. Single copy, 5c; 
 30c per dozen, $2 per 100, postpaid. 
 
 3. Oxidized Steel Banks for self-denial offer- 
 ings, 75c each. 
 
 4. ‘‘ Tithing, a Christian Duty,’’ by Dr. O. P. 
 Gifford, and ‘‘ The Law of the Tithe,’’ by Dr. 
 H. Clay Trumbull, 32 page Booklet. Single 
 copy, 5c; 30c per dozen, $2 per 100, postpaid. 
 
 5. ‘The Victory of Mary Christopher,’’ by 
 Rey. Harvey Reeves Calkins. A powerful ap- 
 peal for the tithe, in story form; will interest 
 old and young. It brings results. Cloth bound, 
 
 25¢ each. 
 
 6. Bible Reading Calendar, 15¢a doz.; $1 per 100, 
 
 7. “Studies for Personal Workers, » Dr. H. A. 
 Jobnston, 25¢ each, 
 
 8. “How to Bring Men to Christ,’? Dr. R. A. 
 Torrey, 25c each. 
 
 9. ‘* Individual Work for Individuals,” Dr. H. 
 Clay Trumbull, 35¢ each. 
 
 Send ali orders to 
 
 UNITED PRESBYTERIAN 
 MEN’S MOVEMENT 
 
 616 WEST NORTH AVENUE 
 ALLEGHENY, PA,