Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1884-08-04
&eli9ipns department.
THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS.

THE CHRISTIAN IN BUSINESS.
Can a man be Christian in bust
ness? The question is often asked in
the study, variously answered on the
street, warmly debated in the prayer
meeting. Those are not wanting
who stoutly affirm that the thing is
impossible. And when they say that
no man can be christian and succeed
in business, they mean that no man
who speaks the truth, who keeps his
contracts, whorefuses to defraud or
over-reach his neighbor can succeed
in business. They affirm that more
or less of dishonesty or eXtortion are
indispensable to commercial success
that he who is too scrupulous to mis-
represent his wares, or who deals up
rightly and fairly with his neighbor,
is sure to 60 to the wall in the great
competitions of trade. Is this true?
believe that it is utterly and stupid
ly untrue. That no man can honest
Iy heap up such fortunes as have
been gathered by some of the great
financial bandits of our own time is
true enough; such fortunes are, the
greater part of them, nothing but loot;
and the men who have gathered them
are thieves and robbers. They are
thieves because they have gotten
much of their wealth by the most
shameless fraud they ale robbers,
because they have taken a great part
of it by force. Truly no man can
get one hundred million of dollars in
twenty-five years without practicing
the most audacious villainies or the
cruelest extortion. But that a man
can, by the clearest truth, and the
fairest honesty, earn q good liveli-
hood, and accumulate competence
in legitimate trade is not to be dispu-
ted. There are instances innumera-
BILE of such success in all our cities.
So far, therefore, as common hon
esty is concerned, there can be no
doubt that it is compatible with fair
degree Of success and prosperity in
business. When it is proved that a
man can be honest in business with
out danger of failure, it is supposed
to be proved that Christian man can
succeed in business. But the practice
of common honesty is not quite all
that is involved in being a Christian
in business. The man who tells the
truth, 'Ewho sweareth to his own hurt
and changeth not, who eschews every
semblance of fraud or injustice, may
yet come a great ways short of being
a Christian in his business.
No man behaves like a Christian in
his business who suffers himself to
become the slave of his business. AS
soon as his pecuniary interests be-
come the chief interests of his life,
and everything else except simple
honesty is subordinated to business
success, the man can no longer worth
lily bear the great name of Christ.
This is not saying that there is
anynecessary incompatibility between
the Christian life and a faithful at.
tention to business. The business
itself, if rightly done, is Christian
service. But it is not rightly done
when the financial success become:
the supreme consideration and thu
interests of character and righteous
ucSS are ulttuc ouUOIulHdIC' DuolHCo'
itself may be the high calling of God
but it is only so when it IS made trib
utary to the spiritual life of the mai
and the Kingdom of God in the world
A Christian man may feel that it i
his duty to succeed in business bu
when he begins to feel that it is hi
first duty, he ceases to be Christian
His first duty is to seek the Kingdom
of God and it's righteousness; AM
the Kingdom of God not is meat no
drink, nor q booming trade nor TWEEN
ty per cent profit. The Christian
business man has other duties tina
outrank this duty to succeed in bus
ness.
If he has family, his duty to hi
family is more urgent than his dut
to succeed in business. If he become
so absorbed in his daily work that b
has no time nor thought nor love fo
those who are committed to his care
he does not act like a Christian.
may be that his ambition to succee
in business grows largely out of h
desire to make liberal provision f(
his family; even so, he is preferrin
the temporal good of his children
their moral and spiritual welfare; /
is iaboring all the while to procul
for them the meat that perisheth, an
is neglecting to provide them wit
that which endureth unto everlaStlr
life. Many a father works so hare
to lay up for his children money til;
is more than likely to prove a ours
to them, that he has no time to civ
them the companionship and couns
and personal care that would prov
the greatest blessing of their live
Such q man is not behaving like
Christian he is behaving like
heather.
There are duties due from eve
Christian business man to the chur,
of God; duties that cannot be di
charged by liberal contributions f
the suDnort of the GOSDpl Som