190
Selected Messages Book 2
Loans Better Than Gifts
All these things are to be done, as you propose, to help students
to obtain an education, but I ask you, “Shall we not all act in this
matter unselfishly, and create a fund, and keep it to draw upon on such
occasions?” When you see a young man or a young woman who is
a promising subject, advance or loan the sum needed, with the idea
that it is a loan, not a gift. It would be better to have it thus. Then
when it is returned, it can be used to educate others. But this money
is not to be taken from the tithe, but from a separate fund secured for
that purpose. This would exert a healthy uprightness and charity and
patriotism among our people. There must be thoughtful consideration
and a skillful adjustment of the work in the cause of God in all its
departments. But let there be no meager, stingy plans, in using the
consecrated portion for the sustaining of the ministry; for then the
treasury would soon be empty.—
Letter 40, 1897
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