The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1869-11-03
The Exigencies of Business.

No man can answer the demands OF busl-
ness except by high activity. No man can
be businessman except through knowledge
1t would seem sometimes as though this were
not so. There are men that seem to sue
coed, and that yet are narrow and ignorant
Well, a needle will carry golden thread;
and yet needle, unlike sword, is very
narrow But it is sharp, and by continuous
thrusting, it carries the golden thread that
embroiders the plain fabric with raised and
beauteous figures. And a man may, in
narrow sphere of business, seem narrow, and
yet be so full of knowledge and so active in
the things in which he is occupied as to
achieve success. He may have developed
his life in narrow sphere; and yet he may
be so intense in that sphere as to succeed
But no fool succeeds in life. No man that
is ignorant of the things in which he is en-
gagged can succeed, Business, comprehensive
as the term is, including all mechanical,
commercial, and professional avocations, is
simply matter of knowledge. Although
there may be hereditary tendencies toward
skill in certain directions, yet it is law of
our being that we shall gain for ourselves
skill, knowledge, experience. My father can
transmit to me his property, but not his ex
perience. Your father can transmit to you
his name and give you position to start with
in society; but he cannot give you those thous-
and wondrous adaptations which have come
to him through study and practice. And
every man has to begin for himself though
with better presumptive tendency if those
who have gone before him have transmitted
to him the transmissible tendencies of men.
Every man must build himself up, if he is
successful, by activity, early begun, long
continued, and uniformly varied. There
are a great many who seem to think that
success in life may be had by abbreviated
processes; but the longer | live the more |
feel sure Of the great underlying law of NOR
al equivalents, and that men who achieve
success, and keep it, are men that have given
qutd pro quo for every single step of that
success The longer live, the more 1 OBJ
serve the more certain do | feel that the
men who seem to achieve success by short
courses, by courses that do not imply that
they have given an equivalent of work or
skill or being, soon lose it. [ believe God
has organised human life so that honesty
means giving fair equivalent for everything
you have. That is not the impression of
many. Some people think that genius is
equivalent to application, industry, and &C
tivity. Others hope from occasional poten-
tial efforts to accomplish great results
Still others hope by peculiar tact and
sharpness to extract the golden pile from
the mountain. And men never learn, APP
parently, on this subject. The same round
of experiments is gone through again and
again, and no where else in this world is
there such Slaughter of hope and happiness,
or such a multitude of disasters, as in the
business career of men, all of which illus
trates the great truth that success is the eff
feet of causes, and that it answers exactly
to the causes that are applied to its produc-
ton. No nan can so teach the young but
that they shall come upon the stage of life
with rosy hopes that somehow almighty luck
shall stand in the stead of Almighty God
to them. Yet luck is the FOOLS idol, which
he stupidity worships. All these seemings
of attaining given objects without laboring
for them in appropriate ways are only SEEM
ings; and you will perceive that they are
such if you follow them long enough to see
their rise, progress, decadence, and disaster.
So that l might say to every young person,
if you are living simply for business life,
just as really though not from so high a
plane of motive as though you were living
for religious life, 1 declare that you are
bound to be earnest and active.