The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-01-14


and review. Men are now everywhere
taking account of their earthly stock
and store, estimating their resources,
and trying to find out just where they
stand. They are looking up the years
record to see if it has been to them a
year of gain or of loss. 1t is time
for lf-congratulation, or for anxiety
and depression, according as the balance
sheet makes showing of profit or OF
loss. For no man can help rejoicing
if his honest toll has brought him sue
cess, or grieving if it has been fruitless
or attended with loss. 1t is heavy
sorrow to feel that in the race OF life
one has dropped to the rear. Just as it
is a source of keenest comfort to know
that one is getting on comfortably, &C
cumulating reserves more and more
ample, or moving further away from.
the point of absolute poverty and pri-
walton. 1t is good practice to bring
ones affairs often to the test of exami-
nation, and a practice which every
wise and thrifty man observes. Nor
does it seem likely that God looks with
aught but approval on the care men
take for their earthly business when that
is honest and reputable. So read no
contempt for the cares nor the ambi-
tions of. this life in the words of Christ
in our text. They do not imply that
the affairs which make so large a part
of our thought here below are matters
of indifference. The gains and losses
of this worlds business are vitality con-
nected with our own inner history.
They cannot, therefore, be lightly
treated. The Saviour does not say and
does not imply that it makes no differ
ence whether we gain or lose in world
ly wealth, whether we stand high or
low in the trusts and responsibilities
of men, whether we are suffering or
comfortable in our homes far from
that. Christ is speaking comparatively.
He is estimating things by contrasting
them. And what he does say is that
all our gains or losses of things earthly
are as nothing when compared with
what may befall our inner lives and
that which is most precious in them.
The standing man has in commercial
circles, or in his profession, or in polit-
ical circles, is not thing to be de-
spised. But it sinks into insignifcance
when it is weighed against our stand
ing in the sight of heaven, in that di-
vine Judgment which has the exact
truth about US. And the successes of
life, or of any year of life, in the accu-
mutation of money, in charging bust
ness or in getting into public place are
not to be counted as worth anything if
they have cost man honor or self re-
spect, love, hope, or the sense of integ-
rity. The trial balance by which you
getS'at the summary of your years
work and your financial standing does
not begin to show what you are worth.
1t is not true index of your condition.
Because, for every dollar of profits or
assets represented on that written
sheet, you may have paid something
out of your SOULS best life. You may
have coined your own conscience into
your profits. You may have bought
your stocks with time and thought that
belonged to your wife and children.
You may have made your dividends
out of the stolen labor of other men by
crushing and crowding them down to
starvation wages. You may have
swelled your handsome gains for the
year by the sacrifice of your honesty
or generosity. And if you have gained
in the figures on the credit side of the
sheet by such unwritten sacrifice or
costs on the other, "What doth it
profit?"
We need not enumerate the things
which come under the head Of 1.-THE
world" for which we give our time
and strength. The aims of life are as
various as men themselves. Money
comes first as the symbol of what we
call living, by which we mean the
living of the body, bread, shelter and
comfort, and, if possible, refinement
and beauty, culture and luxury. That
aim, growing out of our imperative
bodily needs, is in some form great
primary purpose with us all. All the
accumulation of wealth in the world
is simply the outcome of mans effort
to get living. 1t is fact, moreover,
that the better living a man gets and
the higher he raises himself above a
hand-to- mouth existence, the broader
and better life as a whole becomes
to him. The world is better off when
the poorest labOring man is comfort
ably housed and able to send his child
rem to school, than when men are dwell
ing in lazy savagery, subsisting /, on
raw fish and clad il the skins of beasts.
Simply stopping here and seeing how
the worlds's civilization has kept
close relation to the worlds wealth,
who could wish to say that the effort
to create or to acquire wealth is one to
be censured? There is a certain profit