Understand, I am not now speaking of the new business man, the
exceptional one, upright, cultured, altruistic, whom you and I may know;
I am speaking of a broad class-line, a class distinction.
It is a strange concept that would bar the business man from the ideal;
that would limit his life to an account-book, a ledger, a roll of
stocks, rents, and possessions, instead of granting him the freedom of
the universe, the privilege of ministering to the race. Singularly
enough, the business class is the last class that Christianity has set
free. Slaves have been given liberty; women, social companionship and
intellectual equality; manual labor has been lifted to dignity and
honor. But to break the shackles of the man of trade is the work of our
era, or of an era yet to come. Thousands of young men are daily stepping
into counting-houses, or behind sales-counters, or into independent
stores, who will never lift their eyes from their goods and
account-books, nor rise above the linen, hardware, groceries, or
house-fixtures which they sell. Such a situation is suicidal of national
prosperity, and blocks the high hopes of the world.
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