Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 19
September 7, 1967
NUMBER 18, PAGE 6c-7a

Charity Begins At Home

Earl Kimbrough

The years following the Civil War were extremely difficult ones in the hill country of North Alabama. A land already poor by nature was further impoverished by the war and its "reconstructed" aftermath. Gospel preachers found it necessary to provide their own support, receiving little, and sometimes nothing, from the brethren. Aged preachers were often left to struggle along on a meager income and frequently had to "beg" for enough to keep body and soul together. God only knows how many pioneer gospel preachers, in Alabama and elsewhere throughout the Southland, suffered deprivation in their declining years. Occasionally, a kind-hearted brother would undertake to relieve an aged preacher by calling his plight to the attention of the "brotherhood." But, as is often the case today, some of these well-intentioned brethren found it easier to ask the "brotherhood" to provide the things needed than to do very much about it themselves.

An appeal of this kind was sent to David Lipscomb, in 1876, in behalf of brother J. H. Dunn. Brother Dunn was living in the vicinity of Athens, Alabama, at the time, and was seventy-nine years old. He had been "an able and uncompromising defender of the truth" for nearly half a century. His field of labor included the upper Green River country of Kentucky, West Tennessee, North Mississippi, and North Alabama. The letter appealing for help said, "Bro. Dunn lives in a very poor section of country, brethren generally are very poor, and of course little able to help him."

Lipscomb published the letter in his paper and appended some appropriate observations of his own. His comments are worthy of careful consideration even in the more affluent times in which we live today, for the desire to shift personal responsibility to the "brotherhood" has not subsided during the ninety years that have passed since they were written. Lipscomb said:

The brethren where (Brother Dunn) lives ought to help him. They are poor, it is true, yet out of the number around him, a little self-denial will relieve our brother. They can contribute in their own productions. Some a little corn, a little wheat, a little bacon, etc. Now brethren, we know this can be done. It ought to be done. And if it is not done, it will be a lasting shame and disgrace to the professed Christians in his neighborhood...Bro. Dunn is accustomed to a frugal style of living and it does not require much to make his old age comfortable. Brethren ought to be ashamed to let such an appeal be made. If a circus was to exhibit in that neighborhood these poor Christians, too poor to help a poor, suffering old servant of the Lord to be comfortable, would spend enough in one day to make him comfortable for a year. Brethren it is not poverty, it is lack of a will to help him. Do not deceive yourselves in this matter. (Gospel Advocate, April 13, 1876, pp. 352,353.)