Learn English – the origin of this triplet: Time, Talents, and Treasure

etymology

I am 50 years old, and I just became aware of widespread usage of "Time, Talents, and Treasure" in religious circles, maybe especially Catholicism. My own religion, Mormonism, has a temple covenant about consecrating time, talents, and "everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you" to the LDS church. And I was not aware until recently that it might be a conscious deviation from an old triplet.

Does anybody know from where the pithier version originates? My completely uniformed guess would be that it might have originated in some sort of Catholic catechism or papal pronouncement.

Best Answer

The earliest example I have been able to find is this one from 1845 (although it also includes "physical strength"):

Time, talent, treasure and physical strength, which, if applied to the promotion of social improvement, the advancement of science and the furtherance of education, would convert in a very short period the whole earth into a paradise...

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Maine Cultivator and Hallowell Gazette (Hallowell, Maine) • 07-05-1845 • Page 1

I also found some other examples that were very close in date to this one. Here's a quote from 1848 from an article about a Presbyterian missionary:

Is this alone not a sufficient reward for all the expenditure of time, talent, treasure and life by the friends of colonization?

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Spectator (New York, New York) • 07-17-1848 • Page 1

I actually did find an example that doesn't list a fourth thing, in a newspaper from 1852:

Time, talent and treasure have been devoted...

Norfolk Democrat, published as The Norfolk Democrat (Dedham, Massachusetts) • 07-30-1852 • Page 1

A newspaper from 1853 article entitled Rebuilding of St. Thomas' Church gives an example from England:

...instead of expending their time, taste, talent, and treasure upon this good work...

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Isle of Wight Observer (Ryde, England), Saturday, June 11, 1853; Issue 41.