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'Baptist Tabernacle Financial System
The cut shown on the frontis page of this issue is
a drawing of the Tabernacle Financial Calendar. At
the closing of each year, every member of the Taber
ncle is given a calendar, showing thereon his appor
tionment per week for the ensuing year, having fifty
two envelopes and fifty-two coupons or stamps, each
bearing the place for name, address and amount of
offering, coresponding with the fifty-two weeks of
the year. This serves as a self-acting book-keeper,
since every coupon unused shows that many -weeks
due.
This is distinctly a Tabernacle system, having
been originated by that genius, Rev. E. H. Peacock,
of whose effort every part of the great Tabernacle
system bears the imprint. He is assistant pastor
and general financial secretary of the whole work.
(Continued from Page 2.)
tion of Lazarus. As the weeping friends stood
around Him, he knew that there was yet one thing
that they could do*; their toes had not yet touched
the waters; they had not yet gone to the limit of
their ability, and hence he said to them, “Roll ye
away the stone.” He could have spoken the word
and Lazarus would have come through that rock;
or he could have commanded, and that stone would
have moved away, but had He done that He would
have failed to teach one of the sublimest lessons
that was ever given to man. When the stone was
rolled away, then they had absolutely reached their
limit; only the hand of God could have effect in the
presence of death. Before they had rolled away
the stone, the responsibility was theirs. After they
had done their part, the responsibility was God’s.
We have been dealing with the human side of
faith, and that is but half of complete faith. What
we want to see, after realizing what man’s part in
faith is, is to reach forth our hand until we grasp
the hand of the Infinite. Then what? Then, after
our toes have touched the waters, the responsibility
is upon His shoulders, and ours is no more nor less
than the simple position of rest in faith. When we
have His mighty hand controlling we have three
things:
First, the limitlessness of His power. It was this
that He taught to His disciples; it was this that they
believed when they healed the sick and raised the
dead. It was this that old Elijah realized when he
stood upon Mount Carmel and dared to give that
challenge to the Prophets of Baal; it was this that
actuated Elisha when he stretched himself hand to
hand, face to face, feet to feet, across the dead body
of the son of that widowed mother. It is this that
is to move the church world if it is to move at all,
and it is th3 lack of it that is to retard the kingdom
of Christ if it is not realized.
We hear much discussion as to hindrances of the
Kingdom of Christ, some say one thing and some say
another is the greatest hindrance, but I say to you
that the principle hindrance is a lack of realization
of the limitlessness of the power of God, and also
there must be the consciousness of the willingness
of God; the willingness of God to make manifest in
our lives the limitlessness of His power. We know
that the world is full of men and women who think
of God as all-powerful and all-willing to manifest
His power, but they feel that He is willing to mani
fest it to a chosen few, to those of superior advan
tages and opportunities in life. We saw while age
that God was our Father, and it would be unlike a
loving father to have favorites in his family. It is
not like God; the fact is, the weaker, the poorer,
the more humble and dependent child, the more the
loving father heart longs to bestow blessings.
Last Wednesday night I delivered a lecture in the
city of Jacksonville under the auspices of the Union
City Mission of Jacksonville. In the afternoon I
went with the superintendent, a mighty man of
God, about over his work, which work I consider
nothing short of a miracle. It is a rescue work, and
among other things, he has a rescue home for girls,
and while I was looking over this place, he told me
THE FAITH INVISIBLE
The Golden Age for March 18, 1909.
Each year some special feature of the Tabernacle
work is shown on this calendar. This one of 1909
being the Board of Deacons representing the heart
of the church, clustered around the pastor. This
plan has brought about a revival in systematic
weekly giving, and has added at least a third in
crease to the current expense fund of the churcli.
In connection with this there is published semi
annually and annually a list of all contributors to
the current expenses of the church, which is called
“The How We Stand,” and to thoroughly perfect
the plan a special book is made each year, blocked
out to correspond with the weekly coupons, giving a
place for the name, address and amount of appor
tionment, the whole is known as the “Peacock Fi
nancial System.”
this story. It illustrates my conception of the father
heart of God and I want to tell it to you.
THE FATHER HEART.
He said that a few months ago the mayor of the
city called him up and told him of a bright and
beautiful girl that he had heard about, who had
gone the way of the bad and was living a life of
shame, and that she was very anxious to reform.
The superintendent went and found her; she was in
a small room in a garret, sick with fever. He took
her in his arms and carried her down five flights of
stairs, put her in a carriage, and took her to the
home, and there looked after her until she was well.
It developed that she was the daughter of a rich
planter in one of our Southern States, and so they
tried to get in communication with her father, but
failed. However, one day the mayor of the city
came and with him was a fine looking farmer. The
mayor introduced him, and the superintendent, as
he shook his hand, said, “Is there something I can
do for you?”
“I should think you have already done some
thing,” he said. “They tell me that you have my
daughter here.”
“Oh,” said the superintendent, “I am so glad
that you have come.”
“Yes, J have hunted my child for months; I had
no idea that she was this close home. Where is
she?”
“She is upstairs. Come with me.”
They went upstairs together, and when they reach
ed the room, the superintendent opened the door
and allowed that father to pass in, then shut the
door and went away and left them together.
That sorrowing, searching father is a good illus
tration of the father heart of God. Somehow I did
not use to see God in this light. He was a sovereign,
with a scepter in his hand ready to judge humanity;
I thought of Him only as great and good and power
ful, but never as a loving father.
My brethren, God looking down upon the church
THE MISSION GIRL OUT!
It Is a Charming Story— 'Beautiful Inside and Out
Send Tor It-" Do It Now”
We are delighted to announce that that beautiful story “The Mission Girl of The Golden Age,”
has come from the press of the Interstate Publishing Co., and it is “a beauty.” It has a captivating
cover design and will “look good” on your center table at first, and then in your library, after you
have finished its thrilling pages.
The “old folks” will feast on it, the young people will “enthuse” over it, and the neighbors will
cry for it when they once learn of its charm and its beauty. Our favorite story writer,
Odessa Strickland Payne, is at her best in “The Mission Girl,” and the fascination of its plot, the
inspiration of its real-life characters, the lilt of its movement, the rose-tint of its romance, and the
stir of its purpose —all call mightily to the enchained reader’s head and heart. Send a dollar to The
Golden Age, Atlanta, Ga., and “The Mission Girl” will hurry to see you!
does not take the same viewpoint that man would
take. The average man in looking upon a people
here and attempting to make a prophecy of the fu
ture would base that prophecy upon their outward
appearance; upon the clothes that they wear, upon
the money that they control, on the character of
their business, the sagacity, the shrewdness and tho
ability of their minds. That is not the way God
looks at us; He looks on us as His children, and con
siders how dependent upon Him we are. He does
not think of us in regard to what we have, or how
much we know; He looks at us as we really are;
He looks at our desire to do for Him and for our
fellow man. Don’t you think that is what weighs
with God? When He sees that we are desirous of
helping our fellow man don’t you think it thrills
His loving father heart? He wants to see developed
in us a true, loving, helpful nature. Some one has
said, and truly, that “Your ideal for life is ever '
prophecy of what you will be when life is ended.”
God would make His estimate of our church also
upon our faith in Him. He wants to see us willing
to touch our toes to the waters; and we need have
no fear that when we get there that the waters will
divide and allow us to pass through. It is when
we get to the place where we can go no further
that He begins to lavish upon us all the blessings
of the fullness of His storehouse.
REST OF FAITH.
My last word is, that with all of this there must
be a complete and perfect rest in faith. Jesus
Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane taught us one
lesson which we have been slower than any other
to learn. It is the lesson of the perfect rest of faith.
He knelt upon the crisp earth under the olive trees
and prayed that prayer, “Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me.” There is no one that
would not gladly have shared with Him in that
prayer. Oh, Father, Father, if it be possible, spare
Him, our suffering, loving, longing Lord and Sav
iour, the pangs of the accumulated sins of earth’s
unnumbered millions. That was what He prayed
about; it was not the sting of the cross; it was not
the nails that were to be driven into 11 is flesh; it
was not the sword that was to bo thrust into his
side; it was the crushing load upon that stainless
soul of all the sins past, present and future; it was
the sin that caused Him pain.
“If it be possible, let this cup pass from mo.”
But oh, my brethren and sisters, the faith that
would grip the hand of the Infinite and bring down
the fullness of the blessing of God is the faith that
goes that next step and says, “Nevertheless, not my
will, but thine be done.” That is one of the hardest
things in the world to say. When I have wrought
and wroked and tugged and toiled upon what I be
lieve to be the thing needed, then to come to the
place after all the effort that has ben put forth, and
say, and mean it, “Nevertheless, not my will, but
thine be done.” “If it is for thy glory not to com
plete the work, not to continue it, thy will be done.”
But, oh, if we can get to that place, nothing shall be
impossible. Nothing shall be impossible to the
church, never mind what the struggle may be; never
mind what it purposes to do, nothing, nothing, is im
possible to that church or to that individual whose
faith rests serenely in God.
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