GLORYING IN THEIR SHAME (BEEBE)

This is an example of the kind of financial cruelty that was practiced by missionary societies.  Do you think that this kind of thing is not being accepted by large megachurches and large missionary organizations today? - ed.

“To the Editor of the Christian Watchman: ‘MY DEAR SIR: - The inclosed letter was received a few days since, with twenty dollars inclosed; It exhibits so much of the true spirit of the gospel that we should be pleased to have it published in your useful Watchman. May others be induced to cherish the same spirit, while they hear the Savior saying to them, “Go thou and do likewise.” 
A. B. M. Rooms, “Yours, &c., H. L.” 
June 11th. “Princeton, Mass., July 4, 1830. 

‘DEAR SIR: - I have no house, nor land, nor wherewith to purchase them. I have a wife and two small children looking to me for the comforts of life; have found it necessary to practice a rigid economy, in order to get along without involving myself in debt, with my small income; yet in view of the necessity of having funds, in order to execute the commission of our ascended Lord, and my professed belief of the worth of the soul, I have felt it my duty to give more for the present year than I have formerly done; for it seems to me, that if I must neglect either, I had better neglect the body than the soul; therefore I send you twenty dollars, to be expended as the Board may think proper; which is about two-fifths of what I hope to appropriate the current year, to various benevolent objects. 

Yours, in Christian bonds, M. B.” 

“Our readers may recollect that a revival of religion has been recently enjoyed in the place where this letter was written. May the genuineness of all the revivals from which we hear, be evinced by equally precious fruits.” - Ed. Watchman. 

REMARKS. Gracious Sovereign of Zion! Is this “the true spirit of the gospel?” By what precept of thy word are men required to thus neglect their families, leave them houseless, helpless, with but a scanty subsistence, to withhold from the wife we have sworn to cherish and protect, and from the babes which heaven has made our special care, to lavish that which is their due, upon a grasping, avaricious, insatiable priesthood, whose delicate fingers must not labor, and whose families fare sumptuously every day? 

ALEXANDRIA, D. C., September 1,1839. 

Elder Gilbert Beebe Editorials Volume 1 Pages 525 – 526