Equity in the Matter of Wages
[
The Spirit of Sacrifice, 32, 33
(1902).]
Dear Brother,
I did not suppose that it would be so long before I fulfilled my
promise to write to you. I have been thinking of the question that was
agitating your mind in regard to wages. You suggest that if we paid
higher wages, we could secure men of ability to fill important positions
of trust. This might be so, but I should very much regret to see our
workers held to our work by the wages they receive. There are needed
in the cause of God workers who will make a covenant with Him by
sacrifice, who will labor for the love of souls, not for the wages they
receive.
Your sentiment regarding wages, my much-respected brother, is
the language of the world. Service is service, and one kind of work
is as essential as the other. To every man is given his work. There
is stern, taxing labor to be performed, labor involving disagreeable
taxation and requiring skill and tact. In the work of God, the physical
as well as the mental powers are drawn upon, and both are essential.
One is as necessary as the other. Should we attempt to draw a line
between mental and physical work, we would place ourselves in very
difficult positions.
The experiment of giving men high wages has been tried in the
publishing institutions. Some men have grasped high wages, while
others, doing work just as severe and taxing, have had barely enough
to sustain their families. Yet their taxation was just as great, and often
men have been overworked and overwearied, while others, bearing
not half the burdens, received double the wages. The Lord sees all
these things, and He will surely call men to account; for He is a God
[303]
of justice and equity.
Those who have a knowledge of the truth for this time should
be pure and clean and noble in all their business transactions. None
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