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. 2SM 209.2