Rom 12:11: Business
Not slothful in business.'97Rom_12:11 (AV).
If we take the word '93business'94 in this text in the sense of trade or occupation, we may make the text a starting-point for a consideration of the relation between business and religion. Let us put the question thus: Is it possible to be a Christian in business? And let us endeavour to answer it by answering the following questions:'97
I. What is Business?
II. What hinders one from being a Christian in Business?
III. What helps one to be a Christian in Business?
I
What is Business?
The word '93business'94 has come to mean much in our daily speech. Its meaning, as we use it, cannot be expressed by any single word in any other language. Like '93home'94 and '93neighbour,'94 it enshrines a tradition and stands for a history. It means a vast department of human activity, in which all the movements of labour and commerce are included. It now stands for a far reaching estate, which, though it cannot be claimed that the Anglo-Saxon race created it, has undoubtedly been organized by English-speaking peoples, who have made it the controlling power in the modern political world. The old sneer that the English are a nation of shopkeepers has lost its point though not its truth. More than all other secular agencies, the business enterprise of the English-speaking races has blessed the human race. It has led the van in the triumphal progress of Christian civilization. It has opened up continents, peopled deserts, and whitened solitary seas with the sails of commerce.
Thus the old English word '93business'94 has come to have a definite and noble meaning. It stands for a mighty commonwealth wherein men and nations are intimately related to each other. It has its own laws, enacted by the Supreme Law-giver, which senates and parliaments do not need to enact and cannot set aside. It enforces these laws by the swift and unerring awards of success or failure. It builds its own capitals in many lands on spots designated by God Himself, and in them it erects stately palaces which far outstrip the pride and magnificence of former ages. It has its own leaders, and it sets one up and pulls another down according as each obeys or disobeys its behests. Kings and cabinets are obedient to its commands. Armies are now little more than its auxiliaries, the hired mercenaries with which it protects its interests. A monarch surrounded by Oriental pomp in his Eastern capital dares to interfere with the interests of a lumber company in Burma. An English expeditionary army sets out from Calcutta, marches to Mandalay, dethrones that mad and foolish king, and sees to it that the injured lumber company shall cut their logs of teak on the mountains of Burma in security and peace. When Muscovite or Austrian ambition marshals its legions, or Moslem fanaticism musters its Asiatic hordes, the business interests of Europe and the world call a halt to the fierce armies and insist that peace shall not be broken or war declared except as they shall dictate. The success or failure of campaigns, of diplomacy, of statesmanship is registered instantly, in all the world's markets, in the rise or fall of prices, in the establishment or impairment of business confidence. And so it has come to pass that almost all the practical concerns of the world have fallen under the influence of its potent mastery, and yield to the demands and movements of business.
When we go behind these general considerations, however, we find that this great commonwealth rests on God's enactment. When He commanded man to replenish the earth and subdue it, He issued His royal charter to business. Business means the appropriation and subjection of the world by man to himself. Beginning with agriculture, which is its simplest form, and rising through all grades of industrial and commercial activity, whatsoever subdues the external world to man's will, and appropriates its power, its beauty, its usefulness, is business; and whoso worthily engages in it is helping to carry out God's design, and is so far engaged in His service. To conquer the earth, and force the wild fen or stony field to bring forth bread to gladden the heart of man; to level useless hills, and say to obstructive mountains, Be ye removed from the path of progress; to summon the lightnings to be his messengers, and cause the viewless winds to be his servants; to bring all the earth into subjection to human will and human intelligence'97this is man's earthly calling, and history is but the progressive accomplishment of it. Therefore it is that, rightly regarded, business is a department of Christian activity. Therefore it is to be said and insisted on that the worthy business of everyday life is a department of genuine Christian culture that ought to be pursued with high aims and lofty motives, not only for what it enables man to do, but chiefly for what it enables man to be in the exercise of his kingly function and in the development of his kingly character.
Now there are three aspects in which business may be considered by the follower of Christ.
1. It is a means of earning a livelihood.'97In other words, it is a way of making money. Now if we consider it, we shall see that money, honestly earned, represents so much good done in the world. You produce what the world wants, and you get paid for it by those who want it. And, in that, you have done a positive good, and your profit has a moral value in it, as representing a want supplied and a fellow-man advantaged. Thus, the farmer who does his best with his fields is doing a duty not only to himself, but to his fellow-men and his God; for his fellow-men need his corn, and God desires his services in feeding His children. The manufacturer in his mill, the merchant on the Exchange, the trader in his shop may all feel the same'97that the Great Master needs them because the Master's world needs them, and that diligence in their several callings is not only necessary in order to earn their daily bread, but that honour and religion call upon them to lose no time, and dissipate no faculty, and squander no power.
I once had a clerk who, being a very dazzling genius, led me into many postal difficulties. The quantities of paper that boy went through are not to be stated without long and serious thought. That was, however, comparatively a trifle. The gifted youth put the letters in the wrong envelopes, and used foreign stamps for inland correspondence with a prodigal hand. This was genius. This was the noble-mindedness which soars above the mean region of details. When I sent him away, his mother complained of my being '93severe,'94 and, looking at me with large and reproachful eyes, said, in an annihilating tone, '93And you a minister!'941 [Note: Joseph Parker, Well Begun, 69.]
2. It is a debt to society.'97It is an equivalent which we have to pay to society for our share of its advantages. Every man gets his share of the privileges of society. He gets his food three times a day; he gets his clothes; and he gets some kind of lodging to defend him from the wind and weather. These society has to fetch for him from afar. His tea is brought from China; his rice from India; the cotton he wears from America; the timber of the roof above his head from Norway. Now, for these advantages which society confers on the individual she demands in return his day's work. If she is well satisfied with it she may give him finer clothes, finer food, finer lodging, and even add delightful extras'97like a good house, wife and children, desirable friends, books, pictures, travel, and the like. But the principle is the same all through'97that you must give your day's work for your share of society's advantages. Some speculators in our day hold that man has a natural right to these things. When a child is born, they maintain, it has a right to be fed, to be clothed, to be housed. Well, perhaps a child has; but an able-bodied man has not, unless he is ready to work for them. It is the law of the Bible and the law of common sense that if any man do not work neither shall he eat.
It is necessary that we should be fed and clothed. Or we may put it in another way and say, God wants us to be fed and clothed. He, therefore, who helps to feed and clothe us by his skill, his labour, or his enterprise, is not only a public benefactor, but a doer of God's will. The merchant who sends his ships to bring here the produce of other lands, and to take to other lands the productions of our own, is really discharging one of the great duties of natural religion, at the same time that he is earning honourable wealth; and, if he is successful, his profit is not only an honourable profit, well earned and richly deserved, but it is, in a sense, God's blessing on him as a faithful servant. He may never have thought of God from beginning to end; but what he has done is in full accord with the Divine mind and plan. Nay! the man who spends his working day in merely baking bread, or in laying one brick upon another, or in paving streets, is doing part of the world's needed work, and is offering daily Divine service; for God wants men fed, and houses built, and streets made; and thus the humblest toiler'97at forge or loom, in the shop or in the street'97may lift up his head and say, '93I also am a servant of the Great Master'97a subject of the Universal Lord and King.'941 [Note: J. P. Hopps.]
I do not see how it consists with the temper of Christianity that any Christian should busy himself and spend his days for what is undisguisedly and exclusively a selfish result. The business of every Christian in this world is really not to serve himself only, but to serve his generation and his God. In every other calling he is bound to do that, and, in proportion as his Christian motives animate him, he actually does it. Why not in trade and commerce? Work is dignified to all of us workers only when we can feel that what we are doing has some worth or value to society besides the pay it brings to the workers. Is business any fair exception to that rule? Does the merchant serve no public advantage? Is his not a ministry by which the world benefits? Most assuredly it is. The banker, the trader, the commission merchant, the stockbroker are useful because they either facilitate production itself or else they assist those great carrying agencies by which earth's productions become available to all the earth's scattered populations. You cannot justify the existence of any human industry except on the broad ground of its utility. Then I ask you this: Is it not a nobler and more Christian spirit which keeps the utility of one's work in view and feels itself to be the minister of the needs of society than is the sordid temper which is perpetually thinking of nothing but its pay? For, of course, from this point of view, the profits of business are simply pay, simply that which accrues to every honest and useful occupation, whatever form it may take, of salary, or interest on capital, or profit drawn from extended labour and increased value of commodity. A trader's gain is his wage, and his moral right to it rests ultimately on the fact that he is a useful member of society, that he ministers in a way of his own to the common weal.2 [Note: J. Oswald Dykes.]
3. It is a discipline of character.'97If rightly and wisely conducted there is no better discipline for the formation of character than business. It teaches in its own way the peculiar value of regard for others' interests, of spotless integrity, of unimpeachable righteousness; and the busy activities of life, considered in themselves, are good and not evil. They are a part of God's great work, and are as much His appointment as the services of praise and prayer. I think we all need to be reminded of the dignity and sacredness of a worthy everyday life. God's Kingdom includes more than the services of the sanctuary. The court-house is His temple too, and so is the chamber of commerce. It is just as holy a thing to work as it is to pray; and the distribution of commerce, the helpfulness of trade, the feeding and sheltering of those belonging to us, and all the honourable ministries in which a high-minded business man engages are just as truly a part of God's service, if men could see and feel them to be so, as is the function of the preacher. But then, as St. Paul never failed to teach, these things are means, not an end. Their value lies not in themselves, but in the discipline, the character, the power which they give to do higher things.
Alexander T. Stewart, of New York, was probably the greatest merchant of his time. He built up his vast fortune by concentration of purpose, and by exercising the qualities of the born '93man.'94 He began life as a school-assistant, but soon saw greater possibilities in storekeeping. Without hesitation he made the change which some might have thought a step down the ladder. For years his working hours were from fourteen to eighteen per day. He carried out on his own shoulders the goods he sold, and thus saved the wages of a porter. The store speedily expanded. In course of time his industry, zeal, and capable perseverance made him a millionaire. Integrity of morals is very often a chief factor in preparing any prosperity that deserves the name. Stewart had in his establishment the fixed trading principle, '93Honesty between buyer and seller.'94 He was materially helped by the popular knowledge of the fact.1 [Note: W. J. Lacey, Masters of To-morrow, 16.]
(1) God intended business life to be a school of energy. He has started us in the world, giving us a certain amount of raw material out of which we are to hew our own character. Every faculty needs to be reset, sharpened. And when a man for ten, or fifteen, or twenty, or thirty years has been going through business activities, his energy can scale any height, can sound any depth. Now, God has not spent all this education on us for the purpose of making us more successful worldlings. He has put us in this school to develop our energy for His cause and Kingdom. There is enough unemployed talent in the churches and the world to-day to reform all empires and all kingdoms and people in three weeks.
(2) Again, God intended business life to be to us a school of knowledge. Merchants do not read many books, or study many lexicons, yet through the force of circumstances they become intelligent on questions of politics, and finance, and geography, and jurisprudence, and ethics. Business is a hard schoolmistress. If her pupils will not learn in any other way, with unmerciful hand she smites them on the head and on the heart with inexorable loss. Expensive schooling; but it is worth it. Traders in grain must know about foreign harvests. Traders in fruit must know about the prospects of tropical production. Owners of ships come to understand winds, and shoals, and navigation. And so every bale of cotton, and every raisin cask, and every tea box, and every cluster of bananas becomes literature to our business men. Now, what is the use of all this intelligence unless they give it to Christ? Does God give us these opportunities of brightening the intellect and of increasing our knowledge merely to get larger treasures and greater business? Can it be that we have been learning about foreign lands and people that dwell under other skies, and yet have no missionary spirit?
(3) God intended business life to be to us a school of patience. How many little things there are in one day's engagements to disquiet us! Men will break their engagements. Collecting agents will come back empty-handed. Tricksters in business will play upon what they call the '93hard times,'94 when in any times they never pay. Goods are placed on the wrong shelf. Cash books and money drawer are in a quarrel. Goods ordered for a special emergency fail to come, or they are damaged on the way. People who intend no harm go about shopping, unrolling goods they do not mean to buy, and try to break the dozen. Men are obliged to take other people's notes. More counterfeit bills are in the drawer. There are more bad debts. There comes another ridiculous panic. How many have gone down under the pressure, and have become choleric and sour. But other men have found in all this a school of patience. They were like rocks, more serviceable for the blasting. There was a time when they had to choke down their wrath. There was a time when they had to bite their lip. There was a time when they thought of a stinging retort they would like to utter. But now they have conquered their impatience. They have kind words for sarcastic flings. They have a polite behaviour for discourteous customers. They have forbearance for unfortunate debtors. How are we going to get that grace of patience? Let us pray to God that through all the exasperation of our everyday life we may hear a voice saying to us, '93Let patience have her perfect work.'94
(4) God also intended business life to be a school of integrity. It may be rare to find a man who can from his heart say, '93I never cheated in trade. I never overestimated the value of goods when I was selling them. I never covered up a defect in a fabric. I never played upon the ignorance of a customer, and in all my estate there is not one dishonest farthing!'94 But there are some who can say it. They never let their integrity bow or cringe to present advantage. They are as pure and Christian to-day as on the day when they sold their first tierce of rice or their first firkin of butter. There were times when they could have robbed a partner, when they could have absconded with the funds of a bank, when they could have sprung a snap judgment, when they could have borrowed illimitably, when they could have made a false assignment, when they could have ruined a neighbour for the purpose of picking up some of the fragments; but they never took one step on that pathway.
Judaism in its highest and ripest expression was still haunted by the feeling that between the service of the Lord and the practices of business there was some irreconcilable contradiction. In that beautiful Book of Ecclesiasticus, where the old faith most nearly approaches the new, we read'97
A merchant shall hardly keep himself from wrong-doing,
And a huckster shall not be acquitted of sin.
Many have sinned for a thing indifferent;
And he that seeketh to multiply gain will turn his eye away.
A nail will stick between the joinings of stones;
And sin will thrust itself between buying and selling.
It is a new note that is struck in the New Testament, where business, the buying and selling, the work by which the daily bread is earned, is enjoined as the means of realizing the Kingdom of heaven. No New Testament writer would think of saying that the ordinary operations of life are a hindrance to religion. The point of view is entirely changed. The Christian is to go into the world and engage in its duties for the express purpose of bringing all its activities under the dominion of Christ, or, rather, of letting the will of Christ operate freely in the shaping and conduct of the world's affairs.1 [Note: R. F. Horton.]
A business man, not being well, came to his doctor. The doctor told him he had a bad heart. He said, '93At any time you may die suddenly, or you may live for years.'94 The man was at first greatly shocked, and said, '93Shall I give up business?'94 The doctor said, '93No, you will die the sooner probably for that. Go on, but don't hurry and don't worry.'94 This man went to his place of business and called together the heads of the departments and told them what the doctor had said to him. '93Now,'94 he said, '93I shall come to business, but I can't be everywhere, and I want you to understand that this business is to be conducted with the understanding and the expectation that Jesus Christ may come to the master at any minute, and when He comes I don't want Him to find anything in this firm we would not like Him to see.'94
II
What are the Hindrances?
They are partly theoretical and partly practical. They arise partly from the laws of trade involving competition and opening the door to selfishness, and partly from the actual prevalence of evil ways and the difficulty of making a stand against them.
1. Selfishness.'97A business man is peculiarly liable to a special form of selfishness. It is not the selfishness of ease or self-indulgence; it is the selfishness of gain, of profit, of personal advantage. Profit, of course, is the very essence of success in business. It is the measure of success, and there could not long continue to be business without it. But with the eager business man the making of profit is apt to become an absorbing passion for its own sake. His ordinary relations with men are apt to be more or less controlled by it. He is in danger of carrying it into his social life, of valuing men and politics and principles according to the advantage that may accrue to him from his connexion with them. Such a man soon begins to wish to make his association pay, and his friendships, and his politics, and everything that he is and has and does. And if he is successful, a certain selfish pride establishes itself in his heart. We all know this ignoble type of character. And then, dogging the heels of this selfish pride, comes avarice'97that amazing and monstrous passion of the soul which loves money for its own sake, which grows on what it feeds on, which can never be appeased, which never has enough.
One day a keen business man in one of the chief cities of the world said to another, '93I can take a certain bit of business away from you.'94 It was a profitable series of transactions, which the man addressed had been carefully nursing and building up for years. In the throat-cut competition so familiar in business the other man could bring powerful influences to bear that would result in this business matter being transferred with all its profits to his own concern. The threatened man realized the power of his business rival, and, desiring to make the best of the situation, proposed that they should divide the business equally between them. And so it was arranged. The second man still conducts the business matters involved, and at the regular periods of settlement hands one-half of the profits over to his rival. The other man does nothing, and receives one-half of the other man's profits accruing from this particular bit of business. It looks amazingly like the old highway '93stand and deliver'94 sort of robbery, but conducted in a modern and much more gentlemanly fashion. The law that governs both is the same, the law of force. The Master's follower is to be controlled in all his life by his Master's law of love. The law of love treats the other man as you would want him to treat you.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon, The Crowded Inn, 41.]
The Diamond Match Company, of which the President is Mr. Edward Stettinius, has just won golden opinions in the United States by its heroic action. What it has done is this: It has given up its patent for making matches with a non-dangerous material'97'93sesquisulfid'94'97so that its competitors may use it instead of the deadly white phosphorous. '93My great anxiety,'94 said its President, '93is to see American labour protected from the ravages of a wholly unnecessary and loathsome disease.2 [Note: Public Opinion (10th March 1911), 236.]
2. Worldliness.'97Let us thankfully confess that mere selfish avarice is not so rife as it once was. Our modern life is so full of demands on the profit of business that there are not so many miserly men as there once were. But there is another danger, which was never so prevalent as it is now. This may be called the worldliness of business. Men are simply absorbed and engrossed and satisfied with their business pursuits and business interests, and so neglect and forget their religious and eternal interests. If this world were the only world and this life the only life, then it might be wise and worthy in man to devote himself without reserve to the things that belong only to this world and this life. But man is more than a denizen of this world. He is more than an animal to eat and drink and be clothed. He is more than a calculating machine to puzzle over life's problems. He is more than a mercenary recruit drafted into the world's great army to fight its battles of progress. His own spirit bears witness to its immortal dignity and destiny. His heart, which cannot be satisfied here; his reason, which soars above the things of time and sense; his conscience, which bids him look for an eternal retribution on wrong-doing'97his whole nature pleads trumpet-tongued against the shame and indignity of mere worldliness. And yet with strange inconsistency multitudes of business men make light of the wants of their immortal souls, and go their ways engrossed by utter worldliness.
Never exceed thy income. Youth may make
Ev'n with the yeare; but Age, if it will hit,
Shoots a bow short, and lessens still his stake,
As the day lessens, and his life with it.
Thy children, kindred, friends upon thee call;
Before thy journey fairly part with all.
Yet in thy thriving still misdoubt some evil,
Lest gaining gain on thee, and make thee dimme
To all things els. Wealth is the conjurer's devil,
Whom when he thinks he hath, the devil hath him.
Gold thou mayst safely touch; but if it stick
Unto thy hands, it woundeth to the quick.
What skills it, if a bag of stones or gold
About thy neck do drown thee? Raise thy head,
Take starres for money,'97starres not to be told
By any art, yet to be purchased.1 [Note: George Herbert, The Temple.]
3. Custom.'97Here two sides have to be considered.
(1) On the one hand it is true that there are businesses which are not conducted with the least pretence of Christianity or even much pretence of common honesty.
One hears too often of assistants in places of business being tempted by their employers to do things against their conscience. No longer ago than last week I read in a reputable paper an article on this subject, giving instances known to the writer; and recently a business man who had written a book sent me a copy, in which he gave instances which had come under his own cognizance. For instance, a young ship captain, in a storm, sustained damage to his vessel, and he was called upon to make out for the under-writers an inventory of the loss sustained; but his employers hinted to him that, the ship being old and out of repair, at any rate he might include in the estimate all the repairs that she was in need of. Another instance was that of a salesman at the head of a department in a large dry-goods store. Some of the buyers came from rural places, and many of these would not even commence to do business until they were treated with champagne. There were other cases given of even meaner dishonesty.2 [Note: J. Stalker.]
(2) On the other hand it is probable that deliberate meanness and dishonesty in business is not so common as it is supposed to be. A paper was read on the subject by a business man at a recent Church Congress. He said: '93There is in business much immorality of a gross kind, but it is not widespread. There is a great deal more of what may be called white-lying immorality. The characteristic of the English is to desire honesty and fair dealing, but under the strain of great competition the desire is not yet strong enough to keep men in the even way. Morality in the second degree, which means taking any possible advantage of your neighbour without deception or untruth, is very general. To live and let live, to rejoice in aiding others, to divide, as it were, the benefits of supply and demand, instead of seeking solely one's own interest'97this is the morality in commerce of which there is to-day the greatest need.'94
It is very common to hear it said that all business is a kind of cheating; that in nature the law is '93eat or be eaten,'94 and in business '93cheat or be cheated'94; that one must do as others do or close one's shop; that it is impossible to apply the principles of Christian truth and justice in business, and so on. But the repetition of these sayings is in this case, as in others, always of the nature of finding an excuse for one's self by saying that '93everybody does it.'94 It is always said from a desire to transfer the blame which we feel that our action deserves, and put it on the broad shoulders of '93everybody,'94 or of Providence itself. But I believe there is much exaggeration in the charge of general or universal dishonesty. The whole international trade of this country rests on the basis of mutual confidence and credit, and if this were unsound, that trade could not go on. It is our reputation for integrity and fairness, as well as for the excellence of our goods, that gives the English an advantage. The honesty and word of an Englishman count for much, and can generally be relied on. So I am inclined to believe that morality in business in England is not below the English morality in other respects, and can rise only by the general rise of the standard of character in all respects.1 [Note: J. M. Wilson.]
III
What are the Helps?
1. Be a Christian unmistakably.'97Whatever may be the difficulties of a Christian life in the world, they need not discourage us. Whatever may be the work to which our Master calls us, He offers us a strength commensurate with our needs. No man who wishes to serve Christ will ever fail for lack of heavenly aid. And it will be no valid excuse for an ungodly life that it is difficult to keep alive the flame of piety in the world, if Christ is ready to supply the fuel.
(1) To all, then, who really wish to lead such a life, let it be said that the first thing to be done'97that without which all other efforts are worse than vain'97is to devote themselves heartily to God through Christ Jesus. Much as has been said of the infusion of religious principle and motive into our worldly work, there is a preliminary advice of greater importance still'97that we be religious. Life comes before growth. The soldier must enlist before he can serve. In vain are directions how to keep the fire always burning on the altar, if it is not first kindled. No religion can be genuine, no goodness can be constant or lasting, that springs not from faith in Jesus Christ as its primary source. To know Christ as my Saviour; to come with all my guilt and weakness to Him in whom trembling penitence never fails to find a friend; to cast myself at His feet in whom all that is sublime in Divine holiness is softened, though not obscured, by all that is beautiful in human tenderness; and, believing in that love stronger than death which, for me and such as me, drained the cup of untold sorrows, and bore without a murmur the bitter curse of sin, to trust my soul for time and eternity into His hands'97this is the beginning of true religion. And it is the reverential love with which the believer must ever look to Him to whom he owes so much, that constitutes the mainspring of the religion of daily life. Selfishness may prompt to a formal religion, natural susceptibility may give rise to a fitful one, but for a life of constant fervent piety, amidst the world's cares and toils, no motive is sufficient save one'97self-devoted love to Christ.
There is a passage in a Greek drama in which one of the personages shrinks irresolutely from a proposed crime which is to turn out to his own and his companion's great profit; and the other says to him, '93Dare'97, and afterwards we shall show ourselves just.'94 It is to be feared that this is the way in which many a man has spoken to his own faltering conscience, when it shrank from an unscrupulous act which promised a great worldly advancement. Dare, he has said to himself, dare to take this one step; this step will be the beginning of advancement, and when I am elevated in the world, then I shall show myself a good man, and have the reputation of one. Thus it is that people persuade themselves that religion is not made for the hurry and the struggle of life. Now, they say or they think, now, in the very thick of the struggle, they must be allowed some little liberty, afterwards it will be different; but now one cannot be impeded; now there must not be this check, this shackle; now it is inopportune, unsuitable to the crisis; religion must wait a little.1 [Note: J. B. Mozley.]
(2) But again, if we would lead a Christian life in the world, that life must be continued as well as begun with Christ. We must learn to look to Him not merely as our Saviour from guilt, but as the Friend of our secret life, the chosen Companion of our solitary hours, the Depositary of all the deeper thoughts and feelings of our soul. We cannot live for Him in the world unless we live much with Him, apart from the world. In spiritual as in secular things the deepest and strongest characters need much solitude to form them. Even earthly greatness, still more moral and spiritual greatness, is never attained but as the result of much that is concealed from the world, of many a lonely and meditative hour. Thoughtfulness, self-knowledge, self-control, a chastened wisdom, and piety are the fruit of habitual meditation and prayer. In these exercises Heaven is brought near, and our exaggerated estimate of earthly things is corrected. By these our spiritual energies, shattered and worn by the friction of worldly work, are repaired. In the recurring seasons of devotion the cares and anxieties of worldly business cease to vex us; exhausted with its toils, we have, in daily communion with God, meat to eat which the world knows not of; and even when its calamities and losses fall upon us, and our portion of worldly good is perhaps withdrawn, we may be able to show, like those holy ones of old at the heathen court, by the fair serene countenance of the spirit, that we have something better than the world's pulse to feed upon.
I say to my friend: '93Be a Christian.'94 That means to be a full man. And he says to me: '93I have not time to be a Christian. I have not room. If my life were not so full. You don't know how hard I work from morning to night. What time is there for me to be a Christian? What time is there, what room is there for Christianity in such a life as mine?'94 But does it not come to seem to us so strange, so absurd, if it were not so melancholy, that a man should say such a thing as that? It is as if the engine had said it had no room for the steam. It is as if the tree had said it had no room for the sap. It is as if the ocean had said it had no room for the tide. It is as if the man had said that he had no room for his soul. It is as if life said that it had no time to live, when it is life. It is not something that is added to life. It is life. A man is not living without it. And when a man says, '93I am so full in life that I have no room for life,'94 you see immediately to what absurdity it reduces itself. And how a man knows what he is called upon by God's voice, speaking to him every hour, speaking to him every moment, speaking to him out of everything, that which the man is called upon to do because it is the man's only life! Therefore time, room, that is what time, that is what room is for'97life. Life is the thing we seek, and man finds it in the fulfilment of his life by Jesus Christ.1 [Note: P. Brooks, Addresses, 61.]
2. Carry religion into every part of life.'97If we carry the principles of Christ with us into the world, the world will become hallowed by their presence. A Christ like spirit will Christianize everything it touches. A meek heart, in which the altar-fire of love to God is burning, will lay hold of the commonest, rudest things in life, and transmute them, like coarse fuel at the touch of fire, into a pure and holy flame. Religion in the soul will make all the work and toil of life'97its gains and losses, friendships, rivalries, competitions, its manifold incidents and events'97the means of religious advancement. Marble or coarse clay, it matters not much with which of these the artist works, the touch of genius transforms the coarser material into beauty, and lends to the finer a value it never had before. Lofty or lowly, rude or refined, as our earthly work may be, it will become to a holy mind only the material for an infinitely nobler work than all the creations of genius'97a pure and godlike life. To spiritualize what is material, to Christianize what is secular'97this is the noble achievement of Christian principle.
'93There is one proposition,'94 says Mr. Gladstone, '93which the experience of life burns into my soul; it is this, that a man should beware of letting his religion spoil his morality. In a thousand ways, some great, some small, but all subtle, we are daily tempted to that great sin.'94 What did Gladstone mean by that? He immediately adds, for he was an intensely religious man himself: '93To speak of such a thing seems dishonouring to God; but it is not religion as it comes from Him, it is religion with the strange and evil mixtures which it gathers from dwelling in us.'942 [Note: Morley, Life of Gladstone, ii. 185.] And that is the heart of the trouble. A religion which concerns itself chiefly with ritual or creed or form, which separates itself from life by insisting on exclusive privileges for itself and its votaries, which is formal and official instead of being real and vital, imperils the foundations of common morality. As long as we are content to treat our religion in that way, its place in the practical concerns of life will inevitably be that of an interloper, intruding and interfering where it does not belong. There was, indeed, much truth and homely wisdom in the advice which young David Livingstone received from his grandfather when he left Blantyre for the old College at Glasgow: '93Dauvit, Dauvit, make your religion an everyday business of your life, and not a thing of fits and starts.'941 [Note: D. S, Mackay.]
Out of the pulpit I would be the same man I was in it, seeing and feeling the realities of the unseen; and in the pulpit I would be the same man I was out of it, taking facts as they are, and dealing with things as they show themselves in the world.2 [Note: George Macdonald.]
(1) It is convenient, no doubt, to distinguish what is commonly described as '93secular'94 from what is commonly described as '93religious.'94 We all know what the distinction means. But the distinction must not be understood to imply that in religious work we are doing God's will, and that in secular work we are not doing it. God Himself has done, and is always doing, a great deal of work that we must call secular; and this throws considerable light on the laws which should govern our own secular calling. He is the Creator of all things. He made the earth, and He made it broad enough for us to grow corn and grass on it, to build cities on it, with town-halls, courts of justice, houses of parliament, schools, universities, literary institutes, and galleries of art. It is impossible to use it all for churches and chapels, or for any other '93consecrated'94 purpose. God made a great part of the world for common uses; but since the world, every acre, every square yard of it, belongs to Him, since He is the only Freeholder, we have no right to build anything on it that He does not want to have built. He kindled the fires of the sun, and the sun gives us light, not only on Sundays when we go to church, but on common days, and we have no right to use the sunlight for any purpose for which God does not give it. God made the trees; but He made too many for the timber to be used only for buildings intended for religious worship. What did He make the rest for? It is His timber. He never parts with His property in it. When we buy it we do not buy it from God; we pay Him no money for it. All that we do is to pay money to our fellow-men that we may have the right to use it in God's service.
It is as secular a work to create a walnut-tree, and to provide soil and rain and warmth for its growth, as it is to make a walnut-wood table for a drawing-room out of it. It is as secular a work to create a cotton plant as to spin the cotton and to weave it. It is as secular a work to create iron as to make the iron into railway girders, into plates for steamships, into ploughs and harrows, nails, screws, and bedsteads. It is as secular a work to create the sun to give light in the daytime as to make a lamp, or to build gasworks, or to manufacture gas, to give light at night.1 [Note: R. W. Dale.]
Religion consists, not so much in doing spiritual or sacred acts, as in doing secular acts from a sacred or spiritual motive.2 [Note: John Caird.]
The mite of the widow was more than the gold of the scribe. And why? Because motive is more to God than matter, though it be gold. The broken cry of the publican was a truer prayer than the self-satisfied cadence of the Pharisee. And why? Because motive, not method, however beautiful, is what the great Father sees. Let, then, any man, I care not who he may be, bring himself into an intellectual condition in which he feels that religion is essentially a round of outward service only, and whether that man perform his service in a Quaker meetinghouse, in a Methodist chapel, or in a majestic minster, he is simply reducing religion into a meanness that is less than human, and abstracting from it every element that makes it Divine and uplifting. But, on the other hand, any action done nobly and in Christ's spirit, whether in the smithy, or in the steamboat, or in the market-place, may be sacred.3 [Note: W. H. Dallinger.]
(2) The spiritual life is perfected through the worldly life, and the worldly life is perfected through the spiritual life.
So far from teaching that the spiritual life is antagonistic to life of secular action, the New Testament teaches that the spiritual is directly related to the worldly life, and that the former is perfected by the latter. The cares of domesticity, the duties of citizenship, the exercises of trade, the implications of industry and toil are all influentially soliciting, training, invigorating, unfolding, and in a thousand ways perfecting the faculties of the soul and disciplining them in righteousness. If we observe the intellectual life we see at once that men can never, except with extreme disadvantage, divorce themselves from tangible things. If from any motive intellectual men isolate themselves from the commonplace world of facts, if they deny their sense, if they attempt to pursue their studies in a purely metaphysical manner, they immediately and manifestly suffer. It is almost universally recognized that artists cannot with impunity exclude the actual world and resign themselves to reverie and metaphysics. And the same thing is most true in relation to our spiritual life'97that life can grow only as it is elicited, exercised, conditioned by our worldly life. The world is a magnificent apparatus of discipline with which no spiritual man can affect to dispense. We cannot work out our highest life in isolation, abstraction, asceticism, in independence of daily, trivial, vulgar life. It is not by isolating ourselves from earthly things that we shall lay hold of the Divine life; it is by the true use and sanctification of the earthly life that we attain the Divine and the eternal. If intellectual monasticism would issue in monstrous masterpieces, in fantastic symphonies, in bizarre poesy, so any shrinking from natural worldly life and its relations produces deformed and morbid character utterly without attractiveness. Be not afraid of secular life and all that it involves.
The painter who refuses to go to nature soon paints badly. He cannot persist in evolving faces and landscapes from his consciousness and continue to produce work of veracity and power. To neglect the colours of summer, the features of the landscape, the lustres of dawn, the aspects of sea and sky, to neglect the facts of anatomy, the lines of physiognomy, the living face, the reality of things, is to sacrifice the truth, the splendour, the magic of art. The painter must live with the visible world, follow her subtle changes, know her as only genius and love can know; he can lay hold of ideal beauty only through close daily contact with corporeal things.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]
Again, the worldly life is perfected through the spiritual life. It is often urged that the spiritual life is injurious to the worldly life. Secularists profess that the two lives are mutually exclusive. They conclude that just as we are occupied with a higher world we become incapable of making the best of this. We boldly affirm that the whole material life of society here and now is secured and perpetuated by spirituality. It is the habit of the secularist to represent the love of God as so much precious feeling dissipated in the abyss; to consider the worship of God as vital energy scattered in the air; to teach that the thought of the future is thought withdrawn from a present which demands our concentrated strength; but, in fact, a living confidence in God, a living hope of everlasting life, a living faith in the higher law is the golden bond which holds society together, the dynamic which keeps the world moving to the glorious goal. The secularist mocks the spiritualist, and reproaches him as '93a child crying for the moon.'94 Well, let the child cry for the moon; it will be a sorry day for the world when the child ceases to cry for it. The child's crying for the moon is the mainspring of civilization. Isaac Newton in infancy cried for the moon, and when he became a man, in a very true and glorious sense, he got it, together with the sun and all the stars. Never crush the aspirations of men, especially their highest aspirations and hopes. Stretching out the hands to that which is beyond urges all things onward to a large and final perfection. Looking to the things which are unseen and eternal we inherit in their fulness the things seen and temporal.
Philosophers are sometimes exceedingly detached from the world, strangely careless about national struggles in which it would seem they ought to be passionately interested. What about Goethe and his lack of patriotism? He was absorbed by singers and actors, by art and literature, and hardly cast a glance at the struggles of the Fatherland. Some poets are notoriously indifferent to practical questions; they ignore contemporaneous politics, they utterly fail in monetary management. Shakespeare's writings contain few and faint reflections of the age in which he lived; and some of the critics accuse Tennyson of insensibility to the social and material aspects of his time. Naturalists, also, like Audubon, have been noted for their aloofness; dreaming in the green wood, they missed the chances of the Stock Exchange. Are we then to draw the large conclusion that philosophy, poetry, and science are unfavourable to practical life? Are we, in the interests of civilization, to discourage this intellectual transcendentalism? Surely not. These men of thought and imagination are guilty of a certain unworldliness and impracticability; but we know that they immensely enrich the world. The legend tells that Newton cut in the door a large orifice for the cat and a small one for the kitten, overlooking the obvious fact that the first aperture served for both; and the average practical man makes merry over the blunder of the astronomer whose eye was dazzled with the infinite spaces and splendours of the firmament. Yet Newton, stumbling in trivial matters, was enriching the world beyond all successful shopkeeping. And we know that whatever the other-worldliness of our metaphysicians, bards, and philosophers may be, they are precisely the men who make us masters of our environment, and who in a special measure enrich us with the forces and treasures of the world.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson.]
3. Have a high conception of the greatness of your occupation.'97It must add immeasurably to the dignity of a man's life, it must give him a sense of great security, if he seriously believes that his work has been given him by Divine appointment, that it is really his '93calling.'94 Take a conspicuous case'97the case of the Apostle Paul. St. Paul knew that his work, his '93calling'94 in the old-fashioned sense of the word, came to him from God. But no Christian man can live a satisfactory life without a conviction of the same kind. This would be a dreary and an ignoble world if only an apostle could say that he was doing his work '93through the will of God,'94 or if only a minister or a missionary could say it. Mechanics, merchants, tradesmen, manufacturers, clerks, doctors, lawyers, artists'97if we are to live a really Christian life, we must all be sure that, whatever work we are doing, it is God's will that we should do it.
It used to be common to speak of a man's trade, profession, or official employment as his '93calling.'94 But I think that the word, in this sense, has almost dropped out of use, perhaps because it seems inappropriate and unmeaning. Its Latin equivalent has been rather more fortunate, and is still occasionally used to describe the higher forms of intellectual activity. It is sometimes said, for instance, of a thoughtful, scholarly man who is not very successful as a manufacturer, that he has missed his way, and that his true '93vocation'94 was literature. It is only when we are speaking of the most sacred or most heroic kinds of service that we have the courage to recognize a Divine '93call'94 as giving a man authority to undertake them. That a great religious reformer should think of himself as Divinely '93called'94 to deliver the Church from gross errors and superstitions, and lead it to a nobler righteousness, does not surprise us. It does not surprise us that a great patriot should believe himself '93called'94 of God to redress the wrongs of his country. And among those who are impressed by the glorious and awful issues of the ministry of the Church, it is still common to insist on the necessity of a Divine '93call'94 to the ministry.1 [Note: R. W. Dale.]
There is nothing that man does that finds its beginning within itself, but everything, every work of every trade, of every occupation, is simply the utterance of some one of those great forces which lie behind all life, and in the various ways of the different generations and of the different men are always trying to make their mark upon the world. Behind the power that the man exercises there always lies the great power of life, the continual struggle of Nature to write herself in the life and work of man, the power of beauty struggling to manifest itself, the harmony that is always desiring to make itself known. To the merchant there are the great laws of trade, of which his works are but the immediate expression. To the mechanic there are the continual forces of Nature, gravitation uttering itself in all its majesty, made no less majestic because it simply takes its expression for the moment in some particular exercise of his art. To the ship that sails upon the sea there are the everlasting winds that come out of the treasuries of God and fulfil His purpose in carrying His children to their destination. There is no perfection of the universe until it comes to this.2 [Note: P. Brooks, Addresses, 53.]
I confess to you that though, like St. Paul, I desire to magnify my own office, I am often filled with deep admiration for the life and calling of a Christian man of business. His special trials and temptations are not mine; and, though a minister has his own temptations and trials, he sometimes feels, as he stands before his congregation and looks round upon them and thinks of all the struggles and defeats and victories of their daily life, like one who is standing quietly on the safe shore, while others are desperately battling with the stormy sea. I remember a morning, some years ago, when I happened to be staying with a friend in a great fishing station in the north of Scotland. A gale had sprung up suddenly, and we went down to the breakwater to watch the fleet of fishing-boats as they came running back for shelter. What admiration one felt at the way in which they breasted and buffeted the waves, and at the nerve and skill displayed by each crew in turn, as they drew near to the narrow entrance which was their one chance of escape, and shot safely at last through the harbour mouth into the quiet haven. Even such is the admiration with which one often looks upon Christian courage and consistency and victory in the life of a business Man_1:3 [Note: J. C. Lambert.]
4. Be prepared for sacrifice.'97We need not believe all that the pessimists say about the conditions of success in business. We must not think that the business world is entirely organized in the interests of the devil. We must not think that honest men are sure to fail, and unscrupulous men bound to succeed. That is simply not true. At the same time, if we determine to carry Christ's law with us into all the transactions of a business career, we must be prepared for sacrifice.
If we have in the least degree entered into the spirit of that sacred life, that Divine Life, the life of Jesus Christ on earth, we shall not need to be taught that the law of sacrifice is the fundamental law of the Christian life. His whole life was a sacrifice. To come to this earth of ours, to pass through infancy and boyhood, to lead the life of a peasant, and then to be a wandering teacher and prophet, without a place where He might lay His head, and finally to go through the mockings and scourgings, and to die on the Cross for us'97this was the consummation, as it is the perfect example, of self-sacrifice. And it is for this that men love and worship and serve Him; by this He has put a new spirit into the world and not only has given us an example that we should follow His steps, but has proved that thus, and thus only, is the world healed and purified and taught. The law of sacrifice is supreme and binding on all Christians. It is the salvation of the world.
If any one says that in business one cannot be a Christian because it would involve loss to be so, I ask what right has he to expect that any special department of life, such as business, shall be exempt from the operation of a law which governs the whole. Of course it will involve at times a sacrifice and a loss to do the right thing, and I do not see how any Christian can expect anything else. The sacrifice must be made, the loss borne, as cheerfully and courageously as we should expect an officer to hear the summons to a post of danger or of death. This is the necessary correlative and consequence of regarding business as a vocation, and as an honourable service of men.1 [Note: J. M. Wilson.]
If a magistrate or a policeman could carry out justice only at much personal risk and loss, we expect him to do it. If an officer or a clergyman is called to harder work and smaller pay, we expect him to undertake it. It may not be compulsory, it may not always be done; but we expect it. We recognize such conduct as right, and the refusal as wrong. Now, we ought to regard all forms of business not only as a vocation, but also as a public service, and transfer to it something of the same feeling of honour and obligation that we associate with other public services.1 [Note: J. M. Wilson.]
Business
Literature
Brooks (P.), Addresses, 51.
Brown (J. B.), The Christian Policy of Life, 109.
Caird (J.), Aspects of Life, 273.
Dale (R. W.), Laws of Christ for Common Life, 1.
Harris (S. S.), The Dignity of Man, 189.
Hopps (J. P.), Sermons of Life and Love, 53.
Horton (R. F.), Brief Sermons for Busy Men, 1.
Lambert (J. C.), The Omnipotent Cross, 167.
Mackay (D. S.), The Religion of the Threshold, 92.
Rowland (A.), The Exchanged Crowns, 123.
Watkinson (W. L.), The Blind Spot, 201.
Wilson (J. M.), Truths New and Old, 306, 316, 325.
Christian World Pulpit, iv. 250 (Beecher); xxiv. 323 (Dallinger); li. 108 (Lorimer); lv. 72 (Stalker).
Church Pulpit Year Book (1910), 13.
Autor: JAMES HASTINGS