He is unmoved, both by the rage of
the populace and by its most tumultuous applause. He lives for truth,
not for personal advance; for progress, not for wealth or honor. What
he lays down as a precept, that he tries to live up to, in the way that
shall win the approval of the eternal years.
Sordidness in commercial life is not necessary: greed is
not foreordained. Christianity establishes a new system of
trading-philosophy, and a new basis of commercial ethics. There is a
god-like way of trade--Christ might Himself have bought and sold--else
Christianity fails of its full mission, and there remains a class of the
socially lost, of the ethically unsaved. One reason why it is so hard to
get business men into the Church, or to interest them religiously in any
way, is that ministers, in general, do not understand or appreciate
business men. In one of the most stirring sermons I ever heard, occurred
this unjust sentence: "Our country has been built up by the martyr, and
not by the millionaire." No! Our country has been built up by _both_ the
martyr and the millionaire!
Christianity projects into the world new ideals of Trade, of Gain, of
Competition, Value, and Return for Toil.
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